Suburban Cook County early voting starts today at courthouses

Early voting in suburban Cook County starts today at five courthouses, including in Rolling Meadows and Skokie, and expanded beginning Oct. 19 to more than a dozen other sites in the Northwest suburbs.

The other three suburban Cook County courthouses opening are in Bridgeview, Markham and Maywood. Voters who go to courthouse voting sites will have to go through metal detectors, as do others who head into the courthouse, said Frank Herrera, communications coordinator for the Cook County clerk's office.

Early voting sites opening Oct. 19 include the village halls in Arlington Heights, Barrington Hills, Elk Grove Village, Glenview, Hoffman Estates, Mount Prospect, Niles, Northbrook and Streamwood; city hall in Park Ridge; the former village hall in Palatine; the public libraries in Des Plaines and Wheeling; and Trickster Cultural Center in Schaumburg.

The full list, including hours, is posted at cookcountyclerk.com/service/early-voting-locations.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, all polling places will require social distancing and all election judges will be provided with full personal protective equipment, including face shields, masks, gloves and hand sanitizer, Herrera said. Touch surfaces and voting equipment will be cleaned frequently, including between each voter, he said.

The clerk's office also will provide masks and hand sanitizer for voters, he said.

Voters are "highly encouraged" to wear masks, but the clerk's office cannot turn away voters who refuse to wear them, Herrera said. Maskless voters will be directed to voting booths for away from others, he said.

The clerk's office has been strongly encouraging people to vote by mail and to vote early to avoid large crowds on Election Day, Herrera said. The office so far has received more than 450,000 applications for votes by mail, he said.

"Early voting locations will have the mail ballot drop box located near the entrance so that voters dropping off their completed mail ballots can do so without waiting in line," he said.

The clerk's office has enough staffing for early voting sites but is always on the lookout for election judges who speak one of the new languages on the ballot this year, Herrera said. Those are Korean, Gujarati, Urdu, Arabic, Tagalog, Ukrainian, Russian and Polish.

Votes by mail and early votes will be counted on Election Day after the polls close, Herrera said.