Thousands of Aurora area residents headed to the polls on Tuesday for the 2024 general election, and officials from DuPage and Kane counties said in the afternoon that turnout was going to be near or under what was seen during the 2020 general election which also featured a race for president. There were a number of contests on the ballot Tuesday around the Fox Valley including races for president and Congress, state and county contests and some referendum questions. Election stories can be found at aurorabeaconnews.com and will be running in the Thursday print edition of The Beacon-News. As of 3 p.m. on Tuesday, almost 65% of all registered voters had cast their ballots in DuPage County, as compared to the 76.55% that voted in 2020, according to a news release from the DuPage County Clerk’s Office. DuPage County Chief Deputy Clerk Adam Johnson said in an email that, based on the turnout to that point, it is likely that there will be fewer people voting this year than in 2020. At around 3:30 p.m., Kane County Clerk John Cunningham said that around 33,000 more people would need to vote in the election to match 2020 numbers. “It’s going to be awfully close,” he said in a phone call at around 3:30 p.m. In DuPage, close to 117,000 people had voted in person on Tuesday as of 3 p.m., according to the county clerk’s news release. That is higher than the number of mail-in ballots the county had received up to that point — which totaled around 86,600 — but lower than the number of people who had showed up in person to vote early, which totaled over 210,400, the release said. “Voter turnout has remained strong throughout the day. It is exciting to see so many voters participating in our democracy,” DuPage County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek said in the release. In Kane, around 61,300 people had voted on Tuesday as of 3:30 p.m., according to Cunningham. He said around 98,000 people voted in-person early, and the county had received 40,000 mail-in ballots up to that point. However, more mail in ballots were expected to come in, he said. The voting location with the biggest turnout in Kane County up to that point was the Fox Valley Christian Church location in Batavia, where 1,804 votes were cast, Cunningham said. Cambridge Lakes Community Center in Pingree Grove, another Kane County voting location, had nearly as many votes up to that point, at around 1,790, he said. [email protected]