Evanston voters appear to have swept Daniel Biss into the mayor’s office, without having to vote again in the April election.
With all 50 precincts reporting Biss has more than 73% of the vote.
In the aldermanic races incumbents Don Wilson and Ann Rainey were trailing their two challengers in each ward with all precincts reporting in the unofficial returns.
In the mayoral race, because of a referendum approved by Evanston voters in 1992, a candidate who gets more than 50% of the vote in the primary is declared the winner and does not need to face any opponent in the April election.
The County Clerk’s office is not reporting results for write-in candidates tonight. Counts of those votes will become available later.
In the City Clerk’s race the write-in candidate who finishes with the highest total number of votes will face Stephanie Mendoza, the only candidate on the primary ballot in the April consolidated election.
One wrinkle that could affect the results showing tonight is how many mail-in ballots are still in the mail and won’t be counted until later. Ballots postmarked by midnight and delivered to the County Clerk’s office up to two weeks after the election will be added to the final vote totals.
Evanston Now readers had forecast the strong result for Biss in a survey conducted earlier this month that projected he would win with nearly three quarters of the vote.
The County Clerks office reported 8,631 ballots cast in the race for mayor in tonight’s unofficial results. The final results for the 2017 mayoral primary, with five candidates in the race, showed 10,167 ballots cast.