Eye On Illinois: Early voting turnout was up more than 380,000 ballots from 2022

What did we learn from this election in Illinois?Although that question can be examined politically, it’s too early to do so productively. But it’s not premature to look at things from a procedural standpoint.Obviously it’s important to compare elections based on cycles – to map 2026 against the 2022 gubernatorial election, rather than the presidential vote in 2024 – but given the way COVID-19 mitigations affected approaches to elections, as well as the loss of a Congressional district, pre-2020 comparisons warrant an asterisk.There also are important considerations about the shape of a given ballot. The governor’s race is a 2022 rematch while the incumbent sought a third term; the national and even international political climates are influential, and just as soon as we start to think we might know something, here comes another census, revised district maps and whatever else might meaningfully change conditions.And yet … these are the numbers we have. Keeping in mind the context (Pete