Chicago City Wire

Cook County State's Attorney candidate Clayton Harris won 66 percent of the vote in 20 late-reporting Chicago precincts, 15 points better than the 51 percent he won of the city-wide vote as of Election Day.

That's according to an analysis of updated precinct-by-precinct returns published Saturday by the City of Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.

The 20 precincts reported zero votes on Election Day, but have collectively turned in 3,194 votes since, 2,124 of which (66 percent) have gone to Harris, and 1,070 (34 percent) to Eileen O'Neill Burke.

Harris won 15 of the precincts, to five for O'Neill Burke.

Those 15 were in predominantly black Chicago neighborhoods, including three in Austin, two in West Garfield Park, and one each in East Garfield Park, Auburn Gresham, Fuller Park, Homan Square, Back-of-the-Yards, East Beverly, and West Englewood.

Two others were precincts consisting almost entirely of public housing-- one in the South Loop that includes the Long Grove House Apartments, and another on the Near West Side that includes the Circle Park Apartments.

Collectively, these 15 precincts voted 73 percent for Harris, the analysis showed.

The remaining five late-reporting precincts were in Portage Park, Hanson Park, Edgewater and Old Town Park on the north side, and Clearing, adjacent to Midway Airport, on the south side.

O'Neill Burke won these five precincts with 58 percent of the vote, or 417 to 308.

Of 1,291 City of Chicago precincts, 31 reported zero new votes after Election Day. Another 571 reported ten or fewer additional votes.

All told, at the end of March 19, or Election Day, Harris led O'Neill Burke by 6,136 votes in Chicago, or 142,779 (51.1 percent) to 136,643 (48.9 percent).

At the end of Saturday March 23, Harris led O'Neill Burke by 10,715 votes in Chicago, or 157,180 (51.8 percent) to 146,465 (48.2 percent).

In total, 24,223 new votes were counted, 14,401 of which went for Harris (59.5 percent) and 9,822 for Burke (40.5 percent).

According to public statements by the City of Chicago, these votes included both the late reporting precincts, and votes cast by mail that hadn't been received by Election Day.

The Chairman of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, which runs all city elections, is lawyer Marisel Hernandez. Her director of public information is Max Bever, who formerly worked for the ACLU, as "LGBTQ press liaison" for Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, and as a communications aide and "Pride Parade" planner for former 44th Ward Alderman Tom Tunney.