D65 Referendum Precinct Vote Breakdown Shows Split Across Wards

Precinct election results released Wednesday by the Cook County Clerk’s Office revealed that the rift over District 65’s tended to follow ward boundary lines.

The , which asked voters to approve a $48.2-million bond issuance to fund  ($20.6 million) and pay for various improvements to other Evanston school buildings ($27.6 million), was opposed by a 55 of voters in Tuesday’s primary election.

Still, the referendum found majority approval in three Evanston wards.

As one might expect, the ballot item carried most favor among voters in the city’s 5th Ward, where 67.3 percent of Tuesday's voters supported the referendum. In both the 2nd and 8th Wards, nearly 52 percent of cast votes were in support of the referendum.

However, in Evanston’s 6th and 7th Wards -- the city’s two northernmost wards -- the referendum failed to carry much favor, gaining only 34.4 and 36.3 percent support respectively.

Earlier: 

Tuesday’s poor voter turnout might have also affected referendum results, as 31,190 of Evanston’s 44,387 registered voters failed to show up to the ballot box. In the three wards where the referendum found the most support, nearly 10,000 registered voters did not participate in the primary election (2,724 in the 5th Ward, which had among the lowest turnout of any ward).

Conversely, the 6th and 7th wards had the two highest percentages for voter turnout in the city.

For a more detailed breakdown of election results by ward, see the table below.

Data from the Cook County Clerk's Office website.