Illinois

The State Board publishes nothing on election night. Unofficial returns live with 108 separate election authorities, not 102 counties: six cities and Peoria County run their own boards, so Cook and five other counties answer from two publishers each.

Municipal, township, school, park, library, and fire offices elect at the consolidated election in April of odd years. A 2026-scoped harvest misses every local seat in the state — they ran in April 2025 and run again in April 2027, when Chicago also elects its mayor.

Every candidacy — primary included — starts with signature petitions, and objections before electoral boards routinely remove filed candidates. Ballot position itself is settled by an 8 a.m. line on the first filing day and a lottery for everyone standing in it.

Senators serve 2-4-4 term cycles in three classes assigned in the redistricting act. No odd-even rule tells you which of the 59 districts vote — this year it is 39 of them.

Supreme, appellate, and circuit judges are nominated in party primaries and elected partisan — then never face an opponent again, running unopposed for retention at a 60% bar. A contest model that expects two names breaks on a race with one name and a threshold.

Illinois has more local governments than any state: 3,218 special districts alone, many with elected boards — parks, libraries, fire. An address here sits under a dozen elected layers, and 17 southern counties skip the township layer entirely.

The nation's fourth-largest district elected board members for the first time in 2024. This November all 20 subdistrict seats and a citywide president are on the ballot — a 21-seat office bloc that did not exist two cycles ago.