In what appears to be good news for Democrats, voter registration and early voting appear to be way up in the city of Chicago and suburban Cook County. But at least some of that is a sign of changing patterns on when, not if, people vote.

In the city, according to Board of Elections spokesman Jim Allen, total registration now is about 1.57 million, the highest since the early 1990s.

Of those, 188,864 had voted as of late yesterday by showing up at a polling place. An additional 101,000 or so have requested mail ballots, and roughly 45,000 have returned them—"the highest since World War II," according to Allen.

In 2012, 1.029 million ballots were cast, and in 2008 it was 1.105 million.

Women disproportionately are voting early. While registration in the city was about 54 percent female, 56.7 percent of early voters are women, and 59.83 of those voting by mail are women.

The same patterns hold in suburban Cook County.

According to County Clerk David Orr's office, total registration now is at a record 1,512,190, up from 1,416,811 in 2012 and 1,426,210 in 2008.

A whopping 207,040 already have cast ballots at local polling places, and 41,372 returned ballots by mail. The county cast just over 1 million votes in 2012 and 1.056 million in 2008, so as in the city, turnout so far is over 25 percent.

Also as in the city, women are taking the lead, making up 56.8 percent of those voting.

None of this can be fully analyzed until all the votes are in and counted. But it sure looks like people are getting interested.