Election 2013: Early Voting Keeps Growing in Tinley Park

Early voting continues to be popular among Tinley Park residents, with the village about 300 percent ahead of previous municipal elections, according to Village Clerk Patrick Rea, who went over voter information at Tuesday's Village Board meeting.

As of Tuesday, April 2, 32 residents had cast votes at the Tinley Park Village Hall, Rea said. That compared to 10 and 11 total early voters for 2009 and 2011, respectively, the past two years when municipal elections were held.

READ: Early Voting for April 9 Election Begins

Village Hall also is only an early voting location for Tinley residents living in Will County, which is just a small segment of the village's overall population. Tinley residents in Cook County can vote early at the Orland Township Administrative Offices in Orland Park and the Oak Forest City Hall. There is no Tinley location for Cook County early voters.

The final day for early voting is Saturday, April 6. Voting hours for the sites are as follows:

• Tinley Park Village Hall: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday; 9 a.m. to noon Saturday. The hall will be closed March 29-30 for Good Friday.
• Orland Township Administrative Offices:9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday
• Oak Forest City Hall: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday

Before last year's November presidential election, the village made a strong push to register Tinley Park voters. The clerk's office spent around $500 advertising a voter registration drive that reached out to residents—particularly seniors and students—with visits to Tinley Park High School, Bettenhausen Recreation Center, Tinley Court Retirement Center and other similar locales.

READ: D146 Candidates on How Best to Fund the District

The effort netted 640 registered voters in September and the first nine days of October, which was more than the number of voters the village had registered in the past three years combined. Going into the April 9 election, Tinley Park has 36,638 registered voters—32,358 in Cook County and 4,280 in Will County, according to Rea.

Whether those voter numbers will equate to cast ballots remains to be seen. Total votes in the 2009 and 2011 municipal elections were 2,725 and 3,956, respectively, Rea said, adding that the electricity aggregation referendum in 2011 might be the reason for that year's high turnout.

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