In November, Oak Park residents will have the opportunity to vote to implement ranked choice voting for village board elections in a binding referendum.
What is ranked choice voting?
It is different from the way most people are used to voting. In Oak Park and most places in the United States, voters choose one candidate.
But ranked choice voting allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. If one candidate has a majority of votes, they win. But if no candidate has a majority, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Voters who ranked that candidate as their first choice have their votes transferred to their second choice. This repeats until one candidate has a majority.
How could it work in Oak Park?
If the referendum in Oak Park passes, by a simple majority, RCV would be used to elect village board members beginning in April 2027. This includes village trustees and the village president, but not the village clerk, board of education members, park district commissioners, township trustees, county commissioners, or any other offices.
Rebecca Williams, a statewide organizer with FairVote Illinois since August 2022, said they decided to limit the referendum to the village board because those positions tend to see multiple candidates running, meaning RCV could make more of a difference. Other positions, such as board of education members, etc., are also not within Oak Park’s home rule legal ability to change.
In Oak Park, candidates for village president will have to receive 50% of the vote plus one of first rankings to win. But candidates for village trustee only have to receive 25% plus one of first rankings to win. If no candidate passes those thresholds, RCV will come into play.
The village is not the first to adopt this voting system. Evanston was the first in the state to adopt ranked choice voting for local elections in November 2022 and is expected to implement the system in April 2025. If it is adopted here, Oak Park would be the second municipality in Illinois to use the process.
The referendum is binding, meaning if it is approved, it will be enacted as law. Oak Park can implement it because it’s a home rule municipality, meaning it can exercise any power unless specifically prohibited from doing so by state law. Voters can still choose to only vote for one candidate if they want. They can also still choose to write in a candidate.
“Volunteers have been working toward this milestone for months, and now we’re one step closer to bringing more choices and better representation to voters across the state of Illinois,” said Andrew Szilva, FairVote Illinois’ executive director, in a news release.
Who is behind the effort?
Volunteers from FairVote Illinois, VOICE Oak Park, the League of Women Voters of Oak Park-River Forest and other Oak Parkers worked to get enough signatures to ensure the RCV referendum would be on this fall’s ballot. To get the question on the ballot, 1,900 signatures had to be collected, determined as 8% of votes cast for “governor” in the preceding election. FairVote Illinois submitted 3,254 signatures in August.
Ranked choice voting, according to FairVote Illinois, is the fastest-growing nonpartisan voting reform in the United States. It “promotes majority support, gives voters more choice, saves money spent on elections and discourages negative campaigning.”
Williams said FairVote Illinois is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that works to educate and advocate for RCV across the state.
“It’s also encouraging more choice on the candidate side,” Williams said. “Oak Park has had some history of occasionally candidates dropping out because they were concerned that they would split the voter, be spoilers, with other similar candidates. With ranked choice voting, that’s no longer so much of a concern.”
Bruce Lehman, an organizer for VOICE Oak Park since October 2017, said VOICE Oak Park was started to help give residents a greater voice in local government. He said he got involved with the push for RCV mainly to help prevent vote splitting among candidates who have similar agendas.
“When we told people what ranked choice voting does … there was a clear majority of the people who talked with us who thought that ranked choice voting should be adopted,” Lehman said.
Williams also said she’s optimistic the referendum will pass in Oak Park because residents were positive about it during the signature-gathering process. Municipal elections tend to have a low voter turnout, Williams pointed out. RCV will hopefully help voters feel that their voice matters, she said.
“Evanston chose RCV for their elections, and we’re confident that Oak Park will do the same,” Szilva said in the statement. “Fixing politics starts at the ballot box, and by working to bring RCV to Illinois, we’re working to ensure that voters’ voices are heard.”
Trustees Susan Buchanan, Ravi Parakkat and Brian Straw have endorsed RCV for Oak Park, along with former Village Clerk Teresa Powell.
Are there downsides to RCV?
Some criticisms of ranked choice voting are that it’s too complicated, that it’s too expensive to implement, that it violates the “one person, one vote,” system or that a vote might not count.
Ranking candidates can be more complicated than selecting one. But according to an Alaskans for Better Elections news release, 85% of Alaskans found RCV “simple” in the 2022 Congressional special election. RankedVote also has an online example of how to use ranked choice voting.
Some argue it’s expensive to update voting equipment and training to implement ranked choice voting, according to RankedVote. But the upfront costs could eliminate the need for expensive runoff elections, too.
There’s also a critique that RCV violates the “equality principle” or the “one person, one vote” system of democracy. But RCV does not allow a voter to cast multiple votes. It only allows the voter to show their preference among candidates to determine who receives their one vote.
Additionally, there’s an argument that if all the candidates a voter ranks are eliminated, their vote will not count. However, in a “regular” election, votes can still be exhausted when a voter chooses a candidate that doesn’t make it to the “final two.”
Could it be adopted beyond Oak Park?
In Illinois, the state is studying whether RCV is a viable election system. A task force was supposed to submit a report by July 1, 2024, but the deadline was extended to June 30, 2025.
Williams also said FairVote Illinois is working to gather signatures for RCV in Skokie, too. Implementation of RCV might not change the makeup of local governments a ton, she said, but it will hopefully encourage more choice for voters and inspire more candidates to run.
“It’s been a common thing in cities where candidates are encouraged not to run in that cycle because of vote splitting,” she said. “There’s also certain areas, such as Skokie, where there’s been very, very negative local campaigning. And with ranked choice voting, it tends to incentivize more civil campaigning because of the fact it’s no longer a zero-sum game.”
RCV would be more likely to represent Oak Park voters and elect candidates with the broadest support, Lehman said. He said that the more local municipalities adopt RCV, the more likely it could be to trickle up toward national elections.
Members of FairVote Illinois, VOICE Oak Park and the League of Women Voters of Oak Park-River Forest will be conducting educational efforts until Nov. 5 to inform Oak Park voters about RCV, Lehman said. If voters have questions or want to volunteer to help, they can also visit www.rcvforoakpark.org to learn more.
