Note that these figures are disputed by the officials, saying that Chicago is at 220,000 and despite a shorter early vote period by 4 days will beat 2012 projections. Just sayin, look at the article that accompanies this article
Did you read the next paragraph? It explains that the Chicago Board of Elections is reporting Early Voting and absentee voting *combined* and comparing that to 2008’s early voting numbers (excluding absentee). If you look at EV and AB separately it shows a big dropoff from 2008. Also in 2008 they did not have vote-by-mail as they do now. That should boost early voting but instead it has gone down.