The line outside a polling place in the Loop on Thursday — the city’s first day of early voting — stretched for three blocks and was filled with eager people.
“It’s show time,” said Harlene Ellin, 57, of South Loop, who fist bumped her husband, Mike Cramer, after they cast ballots.
“Oh my God, it was exhilarating,” she said, describing the experience as “therapeutic.”
The couple said they both voted for Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
“I’ve been having terrible anxiety and I felt that voting was a way to help quell that,” Ellin said.
“We’ve been intensely thinking about this for four years,” Cramer said. “I see today as the first day of another peaceful protest that will last over the next month.”
A spokeswoman for the Chicago Board of Elections said 186 in-person ballots were cast in the first 50 minutes of voting. By late Thursday afternoon, 960 in-person ballots had been cast and a total of 8,276 mail-in ballots had been received.
The early voting site downtown at Clark and Lake streets, which opened at 9 a.m., will be the city’s only in-person early voting location until Oct. 14, when early voting sites will open in each of the city’s 50 aldermanic wards.
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Also spotted in line to vote Thursday: former Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
His message to Chicagoans: “This is step one in citizenship, exercise it. And if you’re worried about the country, or you’re concerned or want to make sure your views are heard, this is the way to do it. This is not the only way, but it’s an essential way.”
Emanuel said he’s voting in person because he had a window in his busy travel schedule to do so. His wife, Amy Rule, and their kids are voting by mail.
“I’m with Vice President Joe Biden,” said Emanuel, who worked with Biden as former President Barack Obama’s chief of staff.
Bobbie James, 71, a retired nurse from South Shore who worked at Stroger Hospital, waited about 90 minutes to vote.
“As a nurse, I’m concerned about health care, millions of people could lose their health care if the Affordable Care Act is overturned,” she said.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson also voted Thursday.
“The stakes are very high,” said Jackson, who’s spearheading a get-out-the-vote campaign.
“I’m voting for Joe Biden. ... Trump’s disgraceful performance Tuesday night set America back in the eyes of the world,” he said of Trump’s behavior during the presidential debate.
Contributing: Tom Schuba
