Your vote can help steer the city’s future. Here’s how you can make the most informed choice.
AVOTING IN CITY ELECTIONS REALLY MATTERS. THE DECISIONS YOUR MAYOR AND ALDERPERSON MAKE CAN HAVE A BIG IMPACT ON YOUR DAY-TO-DAY LIFE AND YOUR COMMUNITY.
s Chicagoans head to the polls — or mail in their ballots — to weigh in on the future of our city, we have thought hard about the best way to serve our community. We aren’t taking positions on candidates — as a nonprofit news organization, the Sun-Times is not allowed to endorse any candidates. We simply want to provide you with the information you need to participate in our democracy and decide who should represent you.
Voting in city elections really matters. The decisions your mayor and alderperson make can have a big impact on your day-to-day life and your community. This year is also a historic election because it marks the first time Chicago voters will elect police district councils, intended to offer civilian oversight for policing in all 22 districts.
So we’ve collaborated with our partner, WBEZ, to create this independent voter guide for Chicagoans choosing the city’s next mayor and City Council — and its first police district commissions. In addition to including this voter guide in our newspapers at no additional cost, we’re also placing free copies at community centers and mailing them to households in historically underserved areas around the city. All together, we’re printing and distributing more than 350,000 copies to help inform Chicago voters for the 2023 city election.
Inside this guide, you’ll find facts about how to vote; overviews of the mayoral (pages 4-5), City Council (18-20) and police district council (22-23) races, along with referendums (21) facing some wards; profiles of every mayoral candidate (6-9, 1216) and their answers (10-11) to questions about key issues community members told us they care about; explainers about what different city offices do (17); and a column from the Sun-Times’ Mary Mitchell (3) on why our democracy needs our votes.
You can also find much more election-related news and information by visiting the Sun-Times online. Use the QR code at the bottom of this page — or visit elections.suntimes.com — to check out our comprehensive digital voter guide, which includes a quiz to find your best mayoral candidate match, information about the City Council candidates in every ward, videos with every mayoral candidate, ward and police district maps, and other voter resources. (You can also view our candidate questionnaire in Spanish.) And of course, you can also read daily political news and get the latest on the issues and candidates — including live election results — at suntimes.com. In October, we dropped our paywall, making the online version of the SunTimes free for everyone.
We hope you find this guide useful as you make important decisions about Chicago’s next chapter — and choose which candidates should represent you.
Thanks so much to our members, subscribers and donors, whose support made it possible for us to provide this voter guide for free to others in our community. We’ll keep finding new ways to make local news and information accessible to more Chicagoans.
If you’d like to support the Sun-Times and help keep local news free for everyone, I hope you’ll also consider becoming a member, subscriber or donor via the QR codes on the back page of this guide.
Thanks for reading and for informing yourself before you vote.