Thank you, Greater Palatine Area Democrats, for standing up for Democracy during this health crisis.

Thank you to the election judges and technicians who showed up for work yesterday, including one 18-year-old, walk-in judge. While many precincts had absent election judges as a result of the Covid-19 virus, and a few voting places were moved to different locations at the last minute, none of Palatine Township's polling places had to stay open late to accommodate voters. Thank you for your service to America.

Thank you to the candidates--congratulations to Maggie Trevor and others who won their primaries. And thank you to those who did not win. Thank you for making the hard choice to stand up in front of the community to offer to serve in public office. Campaigning for public office is hard, time-consuming and expensive. Thank you for offering to serve the community.

Thank you to the volunteers of Vote Blue All the Way Through, our initiative for distributing sample ballots to voters. Although we had to suspend operations to help limit the spread of Covid-19,  thank you for the work that was completed.

Thank you to those who spent Monday night putting out campaign signs at Palatine Township's 45 polling places. With the coronavirus ending person-to-person campaigning, those signs became a little more significant.

And most importantly, thank you to the Democratic voters who came out during Early Voting and on Election Day. The surge in early voting in Palatine Township -- about 47 percent higher than early voting in 2016 -- helped buoy the overall turnout numbers against the low turnout on Election Day itself. On the weekend before Election Day, the Democratic ballots in Palatine Township outnumbered all the Early Voting ballots in the 2016 Primary. Thank you, voters, for coming out to preserve our Democracy

Stay home, rest, wash your hands. We'll soon start working on building a Bigger Blue Wave in November, virus or no.