By Dee Longfellow
For The Elmhurst Independent
Even at press time on Tuesday, July 5, the results of the General Primary Election held Tuesday, June 28 were still unofficial, but following is the most recent update from the story published on Election night.
According to information provided by the DuPage Election Commission, DuPage County had a 21.95% turnout with 139,673 ballots cast out of 636,341 registered voters. It is interesting to note that 22,559 Early Voting Ballots were tabulated. A total of 34,518 Vote-By-Mail ballots were requested from the County, while the number of Vote-By-Mail ballots actually tabulated was 20,981. This is an increase of 184 votes over what was reported on Election night.
On Friday, July 1, DuPage County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek issued a release on indicating that a retabulation of the results of the June 28 General Primary Election would commence on Thursday, July 7 at 9 a.m. in room 1-500A of the Jack T. Knuepfer building of the DuPage County Complex in Wheaton. The retabulation will be open to the public, in accordance with the restrictions in the Governor’s executive order. Any questions on the retabulation can be directed to the Election Division at 630-407-5600.
Highest-ever vote turnout, says Kaczmarek
DuPage County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek announced last week that the county had the highest voter turnout in the region of nearly 22 percent in the 2022 Midterm Primary Election, combined with a successful launch of new voting equipment and the Vote Anywhere initiative.
“We broke several records for a Midterm Primary,” said Kaczmarek. “We had over 22,000 voters during Early Voting, exceeding the 2018 Primary. We also had close to 35,000 mail ballot applications – six times the number from 2018. Increasing the number of Early Voting sites and sending mail ballot applications and election information to all registered voters paid off.”
The 2022 Primary was also the first election using the new 100-percent paper voting system. Last fall, the County Clerk’s office replaced its 20-year-old Diebold equipment with the Hart InterCivic Verity system for both Early Voting and Election Day. DuPage is the first county in Illinois to use the complete print-on-demand system, selected for its top security, transparency and user-friendliness. Verity is also never connected to the internet, even for the transmission of results, making it impossible to hack.
Because of the new complete print-on-demand system, DuPage County led the way in the state initiating “Vote Anywhere” for Election Day which allowed voters to cast ballots at any of the 263 polling places instead of their assigned precinct. Instead of relying on pre-printed ballots at designated polling places, the new system prints off fresh ballots for voters all over the county.
Listed are the results of the contested races in the within the Independent’s readership area:
Democratic results
For U. S. Representative in the 8th Congressional District, challenger Junaid Ahmen was unsuccessful against incumbent Raja Krishnamoorthi, who received more than 70% of the vote.
Incumbent Kathleen Willis faced a challenger for state representative in the 77th District. Norma Hernandez received 556 votes or 41% of the vote, while Willis garnered 800 votes giving her 59%.
In the race for one of three spots on the November ballot for County Board District #2, Yeena Yoo held the highest number of votes at 8,468, followed by incumbent Elizabeth Chaplin with 6,497, then Paula Deacon Garcia with 5,929.
Republican results
For U. S. Representative in the 8th Congressional District, Chris Dargis won the ballot spot, earning about 30.35% of the vote over four other opponents. It looks as though Dargis will be up against Krishnamoorthi in November, however this only represents the DuPage portion of the vote. Part of the district falls in Cook County.
Greg Hart handily defeated Pete DiCianni, garnering 38,425 votes to DiCianni’s 25,878. Hart earned the Republican spot on the ballot to face off against Democrat Deb Conroy in the General Election in November.
For County Board member in District 1, the top three vote-getters who earn a place on the November ballot were Sam Tornatore with 4,908, Cindy Cronin Cahill with 4,454, and Donald Puchalski with 4,350. Maria Reyes and Bob Dunn trailed with 2,984 and 2,828 respectively. Paul A. DeMichele received 24 votes as a write-in candidate.
For County Board member in District 2, there are three ballot spots available and the first two will be Sean Noonan, the top vote-getter with 7,199, and Daniel Kordik with 4,672. The third spot is still unofficial as the race remained extremely close at press time. Nicole Marie Giannini and Jennifer Veremis were within 118 votes of each other.
Again, readers should remember results were unofficial at press time. Information for this story was provided by the DuPage County Board of Elections. For more information, visit dupageresults.gov.
