Early voting in this year’s primary election came a little late in some parts of Illinois. But officials say the polls are now officially open statewide.
The State Board of Elections says about 30 voting districts were not ready to sign off on all of the candidates when early voting started. Some were still dealing with ballot challenges, which meant they could have been pulled from the race at any time.
Matt Dietrich is the Board’s spokesman. He says local election authorities were told not to let the challenges get in the way of starting on time.
“But that’s as far as we can go, is to encourage them. We can’t compel them, we don’t have any kind of legal authority to force them to," he said.
Early voting was supposed to begin nearly two weeks ago.
The last real roadblock was a case against Democratic attorney general candidate Scott Drury, which was resolved last week.
