SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) — Finalized data show 70.4 percent of Illinois registered voters cast ballots for the November election. The Illinois State Board of Elections reported Monday this was the fourth lowest voter turnout of the past 48 years.

Nearly 2 million voters cast their ballots early and in-person before November 4, while over 1 million votes were cast by mail. The State Board of Elections said vote-by-mail ballots made up 19 percent of the votes cast and nearly 35 percent of voters participated early in-person.

"I thought that voting by mail might surpass voting early in-person this year just based on the amount of interest there has been in vote-by-mail," said board spokesperson Matt Dietrich. "We did see an uptick in the midterms back in 2022."

Still, Dietrich said the 70.4 percent voter turnout is a return to normalcy for Illinois. 

The state saw 70.6 percent turnout for the 2016 presidential election and 70.2 percent in 2012. Dietrich said the 2020 election was an outlier with 72.9 percent turnout. Of course, Illinois leaders encouraged people to avoid large crowds by voting early during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Two-thirds of the voters did that," Dietrich said. "A third of them voted by mail and a third of them voted in person."

There are over 8.1 million registered voters in Illinois, but only 5.7 million people cast ballots for the general election. Dietrich said that is largely due to automatic voter registration when people get their driver's license.

"A lot of those people still are not going to go out and vote," Dietrich said. "They were never registered before. Yes, they're registered now. They're considered active registered voters. So they count against the turnout, in effect." 

If you thought the political season was over, the municipal primary election is February 25 and the consolidated election will be April 1.

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