* ICYMI: Illinois Election Day: Warm weather, strong early vote and federal poll monitors set the stage for Tuesday. Tribune…

- Polls across the state will open at 6 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. Any voter who is standing in line will be allowed to enter their polling place and cast their ballot.
- Going into the final day before Election Day, more than 1.6 million Illinois voters had already cast early ballots across the state. Nearly 900,000 had voted early in person, and nearly 700,000 mail ballots had been returned, according to Illinois State Board of Elections figures.
- On the eve of Election Day, early voting in Chicago looked likely to outpace the 297,759 early ballots cast four years ago. In that election, nearly 180,000 people voted early in person and more than 118,000 cast ballots through the mail.

* Related stories…

• Sun-Times: Illinois voters hit the polls with congressional power in the air on Election Day
• Sun-Times: Early voting, mail ballot turnout in Cook County surpass 2022 levels by nearly 30%
• WGN: Final push before Election Day in Illinois

* Gov. JB Pritzker has multiple Election Day stops in Chicago today.

*** Isabel’s Top Picks ***

* Tribune | US Attorney Andrew Boutros ordered to testify under oath about alleged ‘Broadview Six’ improprieties: The judge’s order marks a rapid escalation of the long-simmering case and sets the stage for a virtually unprecedented hearing, with the U.S. attorney himself being questioned under penalty of perjury. Perry said Boutros also will have to answer questions about his statements to her on May 21, the day he announced he was dropping all charges against the Broadview defendants, and his office’s “repeated failures” to correct Perry’s misconception that the transcript redactions were minor and appeared to be only about technical issues.

* WBEZ | Republicans face uphill battle in races for Illinois attorney general, comptroller, Secretary of State: Former two-term 2nd Ward Ald. Robert Fioretti has an uphill battle against incumbent Attorney General Kwame Raoul, who won both his elections to the seat by a more than 11-point margin. Raoul has served an elevated role in his second term. He, along with other states’ attorneys general, has successfully won the release of millions of dollars in federal dollars the Trump administration has tried to retract over sanctuary city policies, including funding for disaster relief funding and transportation.

*** Statehouse News ***

* Sun-Times | Juliana Stratton tries to make history, Don Tracy gives voice to state’s GOP in race for Durbin Senate seat: Republicans haven’t won a statewide seat in Illinois in 12 years, when Pritzker unseated GOP former Gov. Bruce Rauner, a close ally of Tracy. But Tracy says he’s running to give a voice to the millions of Republicans in the state. […] Tracy has tried to focus his Senate campaign on affordability and economic issues, but he has walked a fine line in discussing support for Trump. The president saw a bump in support in 2024, with his statewide vote growing to 45.3% in 2024, compared to 38.76%.

* Sun-Times | JB Pritzker and Darren Bailey square off again in Illinois governor race: The Associated Press called their 2022 contest the minute the polls closed en route to Pritzker’s nearly 13-percentage-point reelection victory over the southern Illinois farmer and former state legislator, who needs to win over Chicago-area voters for any hope of becoming the first Republican to win a statewide office in 12 years.

*** Chicago ***

* Block Club | Johnson, Other Candidates Face Challenges To Nominating Petitions For Mayor’s Race: “We found a number of problems. One was the [City Treasurer] Melissa Conyers-Ervin’s petitions were mixed in with his. The other was a large number of photocopies, over 1,000 signatures of photocopies. The law says you have to file originals. They are not originals. They’re photocopies,” Hendon said Monday. “Then there were a number of problems with various circulators within the mayor’s filing. It was very sloppy, very messy, done unprofessionally.”

* Crain’s | Willie Wilson challenges Johnson signatures as candidates line up to block opponents from the ballot: Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, conservative Danielle Carter-Walters and lesser-known candidates Zoe Ma, John Kitover and Lisa Nee will all face signature challenges. Supporters of Carter-Walters, members of the conservative Chicago Flips Red group, also filed a handwritten challenge to Johnson. Lobbyist John Kelly will have to defend against a residency challenge and three current elected officials will have to defend their ability to run for mayor despite being on the ballot during tomorrow’s general election.

* Sun-Times | Chicago is voting for its first fully elected school board. What you need to know about all 21 races: Many are closely watching the citywide race for school board president — a powerful position that sets the board’s agenda and, until now, has never been elected. Political action committees and individuals have funneled more than $5 million into the heated three-way race between sitting school board member Jessica Biggs, former deputy political director for the Chicago Teachers Union Hilario Dominguez and prominent defense attorney Victor Henderson.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Daily Herald | Rosemont makes EV charger ban in parking garages permanent: The ban, put in place Monday by the village board, is indefinite, until “they can figure out how to do this stuff safe,” said Mayor Brad Stephens. Rosemont’s initial one-year ban approved in March 2025 was prompted by a raging car fire in the Fashion Outlets of Chicago parking garage on Jan. 18, 2024. At the same time, village building department officials were getting requests from other building owners for permission to install electric vehicle chargers inside their garages.

* Daily Southtown | Crisis Center official reflects on expanding nature of domestic violence response: The center provides emergency financial assistance in such instances, as well its 54-bed shelter. Funding can help survivors become self-sufficient and be safe. Their shelter provides basic needs, including food and clothing, but case management sometimes includes a safety plan to help victims get back on their feet.

* Daily Herald | Lake County forest preserves to add ‘important pieces’ with $3 million in land purchases: “It’s a matter of getting the important pieces and that’s what we’ve been focusing on,” said Ken Jones, the district’s director of land preservation. “We’ve been very, very busy and we’ve got a lot more that’s underway.” The first of the pending acquisitions, called the AYAE property, is about 10.3 acres on Milton Road in Fremont Township. It’s planned as an addition to Lakewood Forest Preserve near Wauconda, the largest preserve in the system at 3,010 acres. The purchase price is $600,000.

*** Downstate ***

* KWQC | Pritzker says he will prioritize closed Tyson plant if re-elected: Pritzker said he believes there’s a solution after talking with the CEO of Tyson and the Joslin plant’s Union Food and Commercial Workers International Union leader. He said they’ve also talked to the Trump administration. “They’ve got a loan program that could work,” he said. “We know that there are buyers out there that wanna continue to operate that plant. And so, if we can put all that together, we can save the jobs there that Donald Trump would have lost for our country.”

* CNI | Healthcare dispute strikes fear, confusion among southern Illinois retirees: The Illinois Department of Central Management Services says about 5,000 Illinois retirees who have recently accessed provider or hospital care will be affected when Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine stop accepting Aetna Medicare Advantage plans at the start of 2027. Many residents of largely rural southern Illinois rely on specialists in the St. Louis area to provide services not available to them locally, but the potential reach extends well beyond state retirees. More than 72,000 people across the 15-county St. Louis metropolitan area are enrolled in Aetna Medicare Advantage plans, according to an analysis of October 2026 enrollment figures from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

* WAND | Macon County officials investigate claims of voter registration fraud: Macon County Clerk Josh Tanner told WAND News only one of those seven registrations were for this year’s election. Tanner said his office turned over requested voter information to the sheriff’s office for investigation. Tanner said the registrations were for people who registered for overseas ballots.

* Illinois Times | Memorial’s West Lake campus to close: he winding down of residential services at Memorial Behavioral Health’s West Lake campus could create a temporary gap in the region for people going through a mental health crisis, but the move is part of a shift toward a more sustainable and comprehensive model of care. That’s according to Alicia Lehman, vice president of behavioral health for Springfield-based Memorial Health. She is the administrator over Memorial Behavioral Health, a community mental health center with multiple sites in central Illinois.

* Crain’s | U of I’s endowment missed out on $771 million. Here’s why: The University of Illinois’ $3.3 billion endowment would be worth nearly $4.1 billion if its investments had kept pace with benchmarks over the past decade, according to two university researchers. The endowment earned an average annual return of 6.94% from fiscal 2016 through 2026, compared with 9.09% for its investment benchmark. Its performance also ranked last among Big Ten public universities for which comparable data was available.

*** National ***

* NYT | Trump Administration Said to Plan Rolling Back Pregnancy-Related Job Protections: But the scope of the regulations under the law, known as the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, has been debated since their drafting. Conservatives, even some who supported the law, said the rule that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission wrote to apply the law reached far beyond pregnancy to cover matters including abortion, fertility treatment and related procedures and conditions it was not meant to protect.