The Cook County State’s Attorney contest in the March 19 Democratic primary is not the only race in which the winner is not yet clear. The result in the race for judge in the 11th Subcircuit, which includes Oak Park, is also going to down to wire.
As of vote totals released March 25, Oak Park resident Audrey Cosgrove held a 284- vote lead over 41-year-old prosecutor Kim Przekota. Cosgrove had 13,355 votes (50.5%) while Przekota had 13,071.
Przekota, a resident of Park Ridge, had led on Election Night and most of last week until more mail-in votes were counted over the weekend, which put Cosgrove ahead. Cosgrove increased her lead Monday when more votes were counted.
Late arriving votes, which had to be postmarked by March 19 to be counted, will continue to be counted until April 2 so a clear winner probably won’t be known until then. Results won’t become official until April 9.
“The Clerk’s Office processes and tallies all mail ballots received for two weeks after election day as long as the mail ballot is postmarked by Election Day,” said Sally Daly, the Deputy Clerk for Communications for Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough, whose office is in charge of suburban elections.
Max Bever, the director of public information for the Chicago Board of Elections, said that counting of Chicago ballots will also go on until April 2 as long as ballots continue to arrive, but noted that fewer and fewer ballots will be counted as the days go on.
Neither Daly nor Bever could say how many votes there might be outstanding in the 11th Subcircuit.
“It depends on what comes back through the mail over the next few days,” Bever said. “We do have some military and overseas voters. We also have 1,991 provisional ballots that are casted (throughout the city of Chicago) and that’s also a question mark.”
The 11th Subcircuit runs north from Oak Park and includes suburban areas, as well as parts of the northwest side of Chicago.
The winner of the race is almost assured of winning the November general election becoming a Cook County Circuit Court judge because no Republican has filed to run in the race.
If Cosgrove, a 59-year-old administrative law judge who began her career as a public defender and moved to Oak Park last year, hangs on to win, it will be considered somewhat of an upset. Cosgrove perhaps had greater name recognition because she ran for judge in 2020 and finished second, but Przekota had the strong political endorsements in this race.
Przekota was the slated candidate and had the support of State Senate President Don Harmon, who is the Democratic Committeeman for Oak Park and the head of the Democratic Party of Oak Park, as well as Franklin Park Mayor and Leyden Township Democratic Committeeman Barrett Pederson, State Senator Laura Murphy, two Chicago aldermen Chris Taliaferro (29th ward) and Jim Gardiner (45th ward), and a host of labor unions.
The only notable endorsement Cosgrove had was from the IVI-IPO, a progressive group. Przekota also raised more money in the race, primarily because of $25,000 in contributions from her parents.
Bar associations gave both candidates uniformly good ratings, with the only difference being that the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois rated Cosgrove as highly recommended and Przekota as recommended.
As of March 25, Cosgrove was winning just more than 51% of the vote in the suburban portion of the district and running only 27 votes behind Przekota in the Chicago portion of the district.
Cosgrove ran strongly in the Galewood neighborhood, picking up 68.57% of the vote in the portion of the 29th ward that is in the subcircuit. Przekota ran strongest in the 41st ward on the far northwest side of Chicago. The 41st ward is perhaps the most conservative ward in Chicago and home to many police officers who might prefer a prosecutor over a former public defender.
Cosgrove said in an email that she didn’t want to comment about the election results until all the votes are counted.
