ROCHELLE — With the 2020 election less than two weeks away, residents across Ogle County and Illinois are taking advantage of early voting and mail-in voting opportunities as a way to remain involved in the political process safely due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.S. Elections Project reported Friday that at least 52.4 million people in the United States have cast their ballots early for the 2020 election. That’s over 38 percent of the total votes counted in the 2016 election. Over 36 million people have cast their ballots through the mail this year, and over 85 million mail-in ballots have been requested by voters across America.

Illinois has seen roughly 2.3 million mail-in ballot requests and nearly 1.1 million mail-in ballots returned, according to the U.S. Elections Project. In Ogle County, over 21 percent of registered voters have requested mail-in ballots, and of the roughly 7,000 voters who have requested mail-in ballots, almost 63 percent (or 4,429) have returned ballots successfully.

“We’re starting to see more ballots come through,” Rochelle Postmaster Paul Charboneau said. “I’ve never seen an issue with mail-in voting. We treat every ballot as First Class mail and there isn’t anything left in our office at the end of the day… I’ve been working with the postal service for 32 years and we’ve processed mail-in votes for every election throughout those 32 years.”

Voting by mail first became prominent during the Civil War period. With many union soldiers on the frontlines, 19 states changed their laws to allow soldiers to vote absentee in the 1864 election between Abraham Lincoln and George McClellan. Voting by mail was highlighted once again during World War II, when the Soldier Voting Act of 1942 allowed troops to send ballots over to the United States from abroad. 3.2 million absentee votes were cast in the war.

The State of Illinois has presented clear guidelines voters must follow in order to ensure their main-in ballots are completed and counted successfully. For Ogle County voters, the process begins with filling out a form designating where the voter’s mail-in ballot application will be sent. Within a single business day, voters will receive their mail-in ballot application form, which must be completed correctly and mailed back to the Ogle County Clerk by Thursday, Oct. 29.

Within two business days, voters will receive their mail-in ballots, which must be completed and placed inside the certification envelope, which must be sealed, signed and mailed back to the Ogle County Clerk. Envelopes containing mail-in ballots must be postmarked by Election Day, Nov. 3, and they must be received within 14 days after the election (Nov. 17) to be counted. 

Lastly, the voter’s signature is confirmed with the signature on the voter’s registration record.

“We take the ballot envelopes and place them in collection boxes with all the collection mail,” Charboneau said. “The envelopes are then processed at our distribution centers in Palatine and Carol Stream. There are intelligent mail barcodes on the envelopes that provide timestamps and show when the ballots are processed. The election committee gets information from the intelligent mail barcode that’s on the envelope. Once the ballot envelopes are processed, they’re sent back out to Oregon, which is where all of the mail-in ballots from Ogle County end up.”

While mail-in voting has enabled millions of Americans to cast their ballots ahead of Election Day, some skeptics claim that excessive mail-in voting can lead to voter fraud or other forms of cheating. However, a recent op-ed published by The Hill revealed that over the last 20 years, over 250 million mail-in ballots have been cast and only 143 criminal convictions have been made for election fraud related to mail-in ballots. That’s a fraud rate of 0.00006 percent.

Charboneau said he hasn’t witnessed any voter fraud or cheating throughout his time with the postal service. Additionally, while Charboneau said he plans to vote in person, he said the current pandemic could encourage more early and mail-in voting for future elections.

“We’ve had absentee and mail-in voting for quite a while and I’ve yet to see an issue with it,” Charboneau said. “I’m personally going to vote in person, but I don’t see an issue with mail-in voting and I don’t see anything at the post office that could cause any issues with mail-in voting.”