Vanishing voting sites: Some states see number of polling places decline ahead of 2024 election [Video]

CHICAGO (WLS) — With less than a week until voters head to the polls, some may find their polling places are no longer there.

More than one in five polling places have closed over the last decade, according to an ABC 7 I-Team and ABC Owned Stations analysis of data from the Election Administration and Voting Survey, the Center for New Data and the Center for Public Integrity.

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Between 2012 and 2022, the United States lost 27,000 polling places, with the number of Election Day polling sites falling from an estimated 116,000 in 2012 to fewer than 89,000 in 2022.

Cook County is one of a few jurisdictions in the U.S. where the number of polling places more than doubled in that same 10-year time period. There were 1,082 Election Day polling places in 2012, increasing to 2,655 in 2022.

In Chicago, many …