Boykin takes lead as city, suburban votes blend

Richard Boykin has taken a narrow lead of just more than 300 votes over Blake Sercye Tuesday evening as votes from both city and suburban precincts in the 1st district race for the Cook County Board began to roll in. Former Chicago Alderman Ike Carothers was doing well on the West Side but was in third place overall when suburban votes are counted in the total. "Things are going great. We worked really hard to get to this point and the numbers reflect that work. We knew it was going to be close from day one," said Sercye Tuesday evening.

Read more on Boykin's win.

Record number of suburban voters registered

A record number of suburban Cook County residents, more than 1.45 million, are registered to vote in Tuesday's election. By Monday afternoon, however, only 36,107 of Chicago residents had cast early votes, a 22 percent decrease from the 45,013 votes cast around the same time in 2010.

Based on numbers released by Cook County Clerk David Orr's office, 34,035 Cook County residents cast early votes in the current primariy compared to 34,829 early votes cast in 2010.

The causes, according to a Sun-Times report, are possibly due to the lack of contested races and the number of 17-year-olds who are registered, but have not actually voted yet.

"Turnout may be low for a primary in a non-presidential election, but voters should remember that the names on their ballots in November are a result of the contests in March," Orr said in an interview with Sun-Times reporter Stefano Esposito. "This only underscores the importance of voting in the primary."

Hover over the bars to view individual numbers

(Totals reflect combined votes from the city and suburbs)