DuPage County
Clerk Jean Kaczmarek urges voters who intend to vote by mail in the 2020
Presidential Election to apply to the Clerk’s office today.
“It is critical for anyone
still intending to vote by mail to apply online immediately, so my
office has sufficient time to deliver their ballot,” Kaczmarek said.
Similarly, anyone who has
received their ballot already is urged to complete and get their ballot back to
the Clerk’s office as soon as possible. Ballots must either be in the custody
of the County Clerk or have a postmark on or before Nov. 3rd.
Though applications will be
accepted through Oct. 29, the Clerk, as well as Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the
Illinois State Board of Elections, all recommended voters to have applied by
Oct. 15. A week has passed since that recommended deadline.
“The statutory deadline was
passed at a time when mail voting was not heavily promoted or selected. It did
not burden the system,” Kaczmarek said. “That deadline will be revisited in the
near future; until then, we are being honest with voters in saying there is a
limit to how long they should wait to apply. DuPage voters have had the
opportunity to apply for a mail ballot for over four months. The time has come
for voters to instead plan to visit an Early Voting site or Election Day
polling place.”
Over 200,000 mail ballots
have been sent to DuPage County voters; over 100,000 ballots have been returned
and verified to date. DuPage County has 644,670 registered voters.
Once the County Clerk’s
office receives an application, it takes approximately 7-10 days for the ballot
to be delivered to the voter. Voters who applied for mail ballots are
encouraged to sign up for BallotTrax
to receive text or email alerts tracking their ballot status. Any voters
with questions or concerns regarding the status of their ballot are encouraged
to contact the County Clerk’s office immediately so any issues can be addressed
well before Election Day.
DuPage County voters have
been able to apply for a mail ballot online since June 16, the
same day Gov. Pritzker signed SB 1863, an emergency election response to the
coronavirus pandemic. The law required county clerks to send mail ballot
applications to any voter who had voted in the 2018 General, 2019 Consolidated
or 2020 Primary elections; DuPage County mailed applications to all voters in
July.
Mail voters can deliver their
completed mail ballots to: a USPS mailbox; to the County Clerk Election
Division office; to a drop box located in the south parking lot or main
entrance of the Jack T. Knuepfer Administration Building, 421 County Farm Road,
Wheaton; or to a drop box located in any one of the nearly 300 Early or
Election Day polling places in DuPage County.
Early Voting continues in
DuPage County at 18 Early Voting sites through Nov. 2nd. Locations
and hours are posted on the Clerk’s website.