While election judges across the state saw less people voting today, the Illinois State Board of Elections reported a significant amount of people voted early for the 2024 primary election.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) — While election judges across the state saw less people voting today, the Illinois State Board of Elections reported a significant amount of people voted early for the 2024 primary election. 

Roughly 430,000 people voted early in Illinois, and 250,000 of those votes were sent by mail. The Illinois State Board of Elections reported only 183,000 people cast their ballots in person prior to Tuesday.

"If you go back to the 2020 primary, you had almost 600,000 votes cast early in-person in early voting," said Public Information Officer Matt Dietrich. "So, that's quite a big difference. That's almost three times as many votes that were done through early voting before the election."

Illinois saw a historic 47% turnout for the presidential primary election in 2016. However, that number dropped to 28% turnout during the 2020 presidential primary in Illinois.

Vote by mail

The Illinois State Board of Elections reported only 183,000 people cast their ballots in person prior to Tuesday.

Dietrich told WAND News that primaries with multiple candidates facing off for presidential nominations usually draw more interest.

"With the presidential primaries being more or less decided for a couple of weeks now, it doesn't seem like you have a statewide motivation to drive Republicans and Democrats to the polls," Dietrich said.

Although, there are multiple contested primaries for congressional and statehouse seats in Illinois. People also have the opportunity to vote for local elected officials and delegates for the 2024 Democratic and Republican conventions.

"Voters want to make sure that the people that they are sending to their nominating conventions in the summer are going to reflect their interest in supporting their presidential candidate," Dietrich explained.

The Illinois State Board of Elections should know the official results for the primary election in a couple of weeks. Dietrich noted that vote-by-mail ballots can still be counted up to two weeks after election day if they are postmarked properly.

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