Kendall County saw only 14% voter turnout during primary election

Kendall County residents by and large chose not to cast a ballot in the March 19 general primary election.

According to unofficial results from the election, 12,302 people of 87,697 registered voters in Kendall County cast their ballot, resulting in a low voter turnout of 14.03%. Of that number, 8,260 people cast their ballots on Election Day.

Kendall County Clerk and Recorder Debbie Gillette said the fact that Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican former President Donald Trump had both secured enough delegates to win their respective party nominations prior to the March 19 election probably contributed to the low voter turnout.

“That would be my guess,” Gillette said. “Everybody knew who the candidates are going to be going forward into November, so maybe that impacted whether or not they were going to go vote.”

In comparison, during the last presidential primary election in 2020 — which also featured Biden and Trump — voter turnout in Kendall County was 30%.

Kendall County was not alone in having low voter turnout in the general primary election. Kane County’s voter turnout was 15.25% and other counties also reported low voter turnout.

In addition to voter turnout being low on Election Day in Kendall County, only 1,883 ballots were cast in early voting.

“That was a good indication that maybe Election Day would be a little bit slower,” Gillette said.

In addition, more people are voting by mail. According to the results, 2,159 Kendall County residents voted by mail.

Gillette said more people have been voting by mail since Gov. JB Pritzker in 2020 signed legislation into law providing vote by mail applications to all recent voters in Illinois. He signed the legislation amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’ve definitely seen an increase in the number of people choosing to vote by mail,” she said.

Despite the low voter turnout during the March 19 election, Gillette said her office is always looking for more people to apply to be an election judge.

“We’d rather have too many people than not enough,” she said.

More information about how to apply to become an election judge is available at kendallcountyil.gov/offices/county-clerk-recorder.