Election board offices were being swamped Tuesday by Illinois residents rushing in on the last day to register to vote in the November general election.
“Typically, on the last day of voter registration before a presidential election, we’re looking at 200 to 800 people,” a spokesman for the Chicago Board of Elections said. “We’ll probably see 1,200 today.”
The Cook County Clerk’s office, which accepts registrations for suburban residents, is seeing the same kind of numbers. Over the five days to Monday, the county had received roughly 37,000 voter registrations, a spokeswoman for the clerk’s office said, with many more expected Tuesday.
The county will register more than 1.4 million voters for the November presidential election, she estimated. For the 2004 presidential election, the tally was 1.37 million.
Such a turnout hasn’t been seen in at least 100 years, the Chicago Board of Elections spokesman said.
“People are doing it on their own,” he said. “It’s not deputy registrars bringing in stacks of papers.”
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Election offices cope with crowds as voter deadline looms
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