What the Chicago Mayor Voter Guide Actually Is
It is a printed or digital pamphlet that Cook County voter registration and election staff put together to help people understand who is running for mayor and what the ballot will look like. You can find it through the City Clerk's office, local civic groups, and sometimes handed out at community centers in August and September before the spring election. The guide does not endorse anyone. It lists candidates, their parties, and basic biographical info, and it also includes a sample ballot so you know what you are looking at when you get to the polling place. I have used these guides for a while now, mostly because I help organize voter outreach in several neighborhoods and people always show up with questions about down-ballot races they did not even realize were on the ballot. The guide catches some of those things, like alderperson and circuit attorney, that most voters completely overlook until they are already standing at a voting machine.
How to Get the Chicago Mayor Voter Guide
The official version comes from the City Clerk's website. Search for "voter guide" or go directly to the elections section of the city portal. You can download a PDF for free and print as many copies as you need. There is no cost. If you want a physical copy sent to your home, some community organizations do mailings, but those are usually limited to specific wards and depend on whether they have funding for a particular election cycle. Another option is to check your local public library. Most branches in Chicago carry a stack during election season, especially around March when the partisan primary happens. They do not advertise it much, so you may need to ask the circulation desk rather than browsing the shelves. I have found better luck just calling ahead and asking if they have the 2027 mayor voter guide, which saves a wasted trip.
What Is Inside the Guide
The guide covers the major races: mayor, clerk, treasurer, auditor, alderpersons for your ward, state's attorney, and a handful of circuit court judgeships. Each candidate gets a short bio. Some write their own entries, which means the quality varies a lot depending on whether the candidate took the time to submit something decent or just wrote two paragraphs about their job history. You will see names like Tom Tunney, Steve Munier, and others depending on who has qualified by the time the guide goes to print. The sample ballot section is useful because it shows you the exact order candidates appear in, grouped by party column. Chicago uses a party column ballot, which means candidates are listed under their party affiliations rather than alphabetically. This matters because it influences how easy it is to write in a candidate or vote straight ticket. I ran into a situation once where a first-time voter thought he could vote for a candidate from one party while selecting a write-in from another, and the machine flagged it as an overvote. The guide does not explain write-in rules clearly, which is a gap I wish someone would address.
Get the Full Details
Common Mistakes People Make
Voters often assume the guide tells them which candidate to pick. It does not. It is purely informational. Some groups do distribute their own endorsements alongside the official guide, but those are separate documents. If you are relying solely on the guide to make decisions, you are not getting the full picture. The guide lists facts, not opinions, and it deliberately keeps its language neutral. Another issue is that the guide sometimes arrives late. In previous election cycles, candidates qualified after the printing deadline, and the printed version was missing them. The online PDF gets updated more frequently, so if you are waiting for a printed copy to arrive in the mail, you might miss a last-minute qualifier. I learned this the hard way when a candidate filed within days of the distribution deadline and the printed copies we had already received did not list them. We had to scramble to print revised versions overnight, which is not ideal when you are trying to hand them out at bus stops and community events.
Chicago Mayor Voter Guide Download Link
You can download the current version from the City Clerk's official elections page. Look for the voter guide link, which is usually labeled something like "Spring Election Voter Guide." The PDF is available in English and Spanish, and occasionally other languages depending on the year's demographic distribution. The file is typically between 2 and 5 megabytes, so it should download without issues on most connections. The guide does not cover Chicago Board of Education president, which some people do not realize is a separately elected position. It also does not include local referendum questions that might appear on the same ballot, though those sometimes get added in later editions. The voter information section is minimal. It does not explain early voting hours, polling place changes, or ID requirements beyond a brief mention. If you need that detail, you should go to the State Board of Elections website instead. The guide also does not reflect last-minute candidate withdrawals. If someone drops out after the PDF goes live, the file stays unchanged until the next printing run, which may not happen before Election Day. I had this happen during a primary cycle a few years back and ended up having to tell a group of volunteers that the PDF they were distributing was already outdated. It is frustrating, but it is a known limitation that nobody seems to fix.
Practical Tips for Using It
Print it out and take it with you to the polls if you want to verify the candidate names yourself. Some people prefer to review the guide at home and then go in without it, which is fine. The key thing is to know your ward number before you get there. If you do not know your alderperson race or your ward, the guide will not help you figure it out unless you look up your address separately. The sample ballot assumes you already know which ward you are in. I also recommend checking the guide against the State Board of Elections candidate search tool if you are trying to verify something specific. The guide is accurate for the most part, but it is compiled by humans under tight deadlines, and occasional typos slip through. I found a misspelled candidate name in the 2023 guide that persisted in the first print run and only got corrected in a second run that came out too late for most distribution. Using the official state database as a cross-reference takes about five minutes and avoids confusion at the ballot box.
