Nearly 660,000 people in Illinois have already voted in the November election. About 176,000 of the ballots cast so far are from those taking advantage of early voting, but the rest are coming from mail-in ballots. Illinois State Board of Elections spokesperson Matt Dietrich says they are strongly urging voters to return their mail-in ballot right away to ensure they are included in election night totals and to catch any errors.
Locally, according to the Mercer County Clerk’s office as of Tuesday, 251 voters have cast early in-person ballots and 1,960 mail-in ballots have been mailed out. There are approximately 12,600 registers voters in Mercer County.