Kane County Early Voting Turnout

Kane County’s clerk has put early voting turnout data online for voters to look at.  The intention is for voters to see how many of their precinct mates have already voted, so they know how much of a wait to expect at the polling place on Tuesday.  For example, a voter may see that only 5% of the voters in their precinct have voted early, which means they may have a long wait at their polling place.

I couldn’t resist playing with this data.  I copied the early voting turnout data for the presidential race into a spreadsheet then joined it to a precincts shapefile I had from the county.  Below is a simple choropleth map of the percentage of voters in a precinct who have voted as of the close of early voting.  Aurora is excluded because the city is handled by the Aurora Election Commission.

There were six precincts where over 50% of the registered voters had already voted.  These precincts corresponded with three neighborhoods that have a high population of retired and elderly persons.  The precincts were Rutland 3, 4, 7, and 9, Elgin 59, and Elgin 12.  The Rutland precincts are made up of Sun City Huntley neighborhoods.  Elgin 59 includes the newly built Del Webb Edgewater retirement community.  Elgin 12 is the Willow Lakes Estates retirement/trailer home community.  The census blocks in Elgin 12 have median ages ranging from 69.3 to 86 years of age.  These three neighborhoods with elderly residents also had early voting polling places in the neighborhood.  Edgewater’s early voting site was open for two days, Sun City’s for six, and Willow Lakes Estates’ for two days.  There was also an early voting site at The Holmstad in Batavia, where 38.8% of the Geneva 13 precinct had already voted.  The ability to avoid potentially long lines on election day and the proximity of the early voting centers proved irresistible to the elderly electorate.

However, the elderly were not the only ones to take advantage of early voting.  The wealthy turned out for early voting in Campton Hills and Geneva.  Campton 7, Geneva 4, and Geneva 16 boasted 40% of their registered voters having already voted.  The neighborhoods include Fox Mill, the area northeast of Geneva Middle School, and the older part of Geneva between downtown, Kaneville Rd, and the UP-W railroad line.  Fox Mill was particularly well-served by the polling place at the Campton Township Community Center, which was open for every day of the early voting period.  Geneva 4 was served by the County Clerk’s office, which of course hosted early voting every day.  Two early voting sites within a half-mile of Geneva 16 provided three days of early voting.  I believe these wealthier areas took advantage of early voting because the high wage earners may have busy schedules.  Voting during the normal poll hours on Election Tuesday would either be impossible or inconvenient for them.  While I do not have household income attached to my census blocks at the moment, I can tell you the vast majority of dwellings are owner-occupied in these precincts.  Other wealthy areas that came out in force for early voting include the rest of Campton Hills, the Providence neighborhood in Elgin, and the west side of St. Charles.

At the other end of the spectrum, Aurora 6 had the lowest early voting turnout, with only 4% of registered voters having cast an early vote for President.  Looking at the Census 2000 block data for this precinct, it is heavily Hispanic.  Most blocks are over 2/3 Hispanic.  Other precincts with less than 10% early voting appear to correspond with large (>50%) Hispanic populations in Aurora and Carpentersville and potentially blue collar or lower-income areas of Montgomery, South Elgin, and Maple Park.  I have also identified a potential early voting site accessibility issue.  These low early voting-turnout precincts did not have an early voting site inside them.  In fact, the sites nearest these precincts were only open for one day in the case of the Meadowdale Shopping Center site in Carpentersville and two days at the Montgomery Market Place site.  Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but Hispanic and low-income folks tend to vote Democratic.  These early voting sites were administered by a Republican county clerk.  An attempt to squelch Democratic early voting?  Probably not.  My opinion is that these precincts’ voters were working during early voting site operating hours or they were not educated about the early voting opportunity.  Hence the low early voter turnout.

To conclude, the top 20 precincts for early voting turnout report over 35% of their registered voters have voted already.  These 20 precincts serve either elderly or wealthy populations and likely had an early voting site in proximity.  The precincts reporting less than 10% of their voters coming out early are Hispanic or more blue collar areas that were less well-served by early voting sites.