By WMBD-TV

CENTRAL ILLINOIS – On a warm late October day, residents of Tazewell, Peoria and McLean counties lined out the door to cast their ballot a week out from election day.

Tazewell County

Some voters in Tazewell County say they went out and voted early to beat the lines.

“I wanted to avoid any crowd on Election Day,” said Mark Allen, a Tazewell County resident. “Very easy, two or three minute delay in line, and the process didn’t take much time once I got to the room where you cast your ballot.”

Tazewell County Clerk John Ackerman said this is a big year for early voting and mail-in ballot.

“We are seeing higher numbers than anything we’ve seen before the pandemic,” he said.

Ackerman explains that the high number of people voting at election commissions directly could be because of voters wanting to go to the source.

“I think part of that is individuals wanting to make sure they see that go through the tabulator, that they come and go through the process themselves and see it firsthand,” he said.

Peoria County

Elizabeth Gannon, the executive director of the Peoria County Election Commission, says it will be a wait when you go to vote, but that it will be worth every minute.

“Keep in mind, this is a presidential election,” she said. “You are going to wait in line. This is inevitable. Whether you’re voting early or you’re voting on Election Day. Everyone is voting, which is great, but you’re going to have to wait in line, so be aware of that. But I would say our line hasn’t been any longer than 25 to 30 minutes at the most.”

Their daily in-person voters have increased from 300 two weeks ago to 1,000.

McLean County

After early voting opened in September, Kathy Michael, the McLean County clerk, said she hadn’t seen that kind of turnout in her 14-year career.

Now, she continues the same tune.

“We used to start out at each site with twenty to thirty voters, this time we started out with over 100,” Michael said. “We now are averaging three hundred to five hundred every day at the Mall and now at ISU Founders Suite.”

Luke Stremlau, executive director of the Bloomington Election Commission, also said he is seeing lots of voters submitting their ballot early.

“Every day we are receiving typically close to one hundred voters in the office here, and we’ve got another vote location at one of our local malls that is doing roughly between two and three hundred every day,” he said. “As of right now, we’ve got close to almost nine-thousand people who have voted early, and that doesn’t include our vote by mail voters.”

All three election commissions say residents can come in during business hours with any questions they have about the voting process.

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