(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The coronavirus pandemic has led to an unprecedented number of early voters and mail-in ballots in DuPage County.
“We’re handling multiple times more vote-by-mail ballot requests than any previous election, so we had to purchase additional equipment and hire additional staff to process all the vote-by-mail requests,” Chief Deputy County Clerk Adam Johnson said Thursday.
In the 2016 general election, DuPage County received a total of about 32,000 vote-by-mail applicants. In 2018, there were just over 42,000. As of Thursday, it’s received just over 186,000 and counting.
For the first time ever, DuPage County added ballot drop boxes, including two permanent ones at the county government complex in Wheaton.
“We also have ballot drop boxes that are located inside our election division office and also inside every early voting location and polling place,” Johnson added.
In a normal election year, Johnson said, finding election judges is challenging. The coronavirus pandemic has only complicated things.
“So, we have doubled our election judge pay for this fall election using CARES Act funding. We’re at about 90 percent of our target for election judges,” he said.
The county also opened its fairgrounds as an early voting site, which saw robust participation. Eighteen additional early voting sites are scheduled to open in DuPage County later this month.