Chicago voter turnout significantly low ahead of Illinois primary election, political experts say

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The Illinois primary election is Tuesday, and early voters continued to cast their ballots Sunday at the super site in the Loop.

When comes down to the candidates and issues on the ballot, so far both have not been strong enough to bring many people out to the polls, political experts said. Voter turnout in Chicago is significantly down from years past.

Northwestern University Political Communications Professor Erik Nisbet said low voter turnout is common in a primary election, but for a presidential year, the numbers are unusually low.

"Really we're looking at turnout that hasn't been this low in a presidential year for at least 12 years," Northwestern University Political Communications Professor Erik Nisbet said.

The latest numbers Sunday night from the Chicago Board of Elections show so far more than 131,000 ballots have been cast. The number is significantly down from the same time period in 2020, when more than 190,000 ballots had been cast.

"Voting is often driven by the top of the ticket and in Illinois this year, we have no top as the incumbent Democrat, and the Republic primary is basically over," Nisbet said.

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The next question is who will be likely to turn out on Tuesday. Nisbet said voter behavior in this type of election is typically driven by passion for the party.

"Maybe 20% of voters,15% of voters in each party are highly motivated," Nisbet said. "Those are the ones that are going to turn out. But for most people, voting is really about motivation, it's emotional, and we just don't have that at a national or statewide level."

ABC7 Political Analyst Laura Washington said the lack of motivation favors incumbents and big political names, but it doesn't look good for races lower on the ballot.

"That's a shame, because those lower races have a lot of impact particularly the judges, particularly the state representatives, state senators," Washington said. "Those lower ballot races do really make a difference."

Experts said efforts to "get out the vote," like what Progressive Baptist Church has been doing, will be more crucial this year than ever.

Nisbet says come November, it will be those "get out the vote" efforts that could be decisive in determining the presidential election.