Ranked choice voting (RCV) sounds like a slam dunk to approve in Oak Park. It seems like a wonderful idea — until you think about it and get real-world facts. In practice, the “instant runoff” style of RCV on the Oak Park ballot isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and simply makes no sense to use in the races for village trustees, where candidates are competing for multiple seats. Oak Parkers should reject the proposed version of instant runoff ranked choice voting and refine the approach rather than adopting such a flawed approach, which has actually:
• reduced turnout, as found in a study of RCV, covering 1995–2011, which may help explain how New York City has elected such mediocre-to-terrible mayors
• especially reduced voting among lower-income households
• generated a rate of ballot errors 14 times greater than on a non–ranked choice ballot, and
• the “instant runoff” style of RCV on the ballot in Oak Park has actually exacerbated polarization in other, already polarized locales.
Ranked choice voting is a solution in search of a problem for Oak Park. While RCV has generated some positive effects in a handful of jurisdictions, the sort of political polarization it’s meant to address hasn’t existed in Oak Park elections in the decades I’ve been observing them from anear.
But even more important: RCV just doesn’t make any sense, and needlessly complicates the village trustees ballot. That’s because, instead of a single official being elected, there are three trustees to be elected from the pool of candidates. Nobody has clearly explained how RCV would work with a multi-seat election like village trustees.
Proponents created an arbitrary way to determine which three candidates would be elected to the village board that defies explanation: counting ranked choice vote until 3 candidates receive 25% +1% of the vote. But wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to use 33% +1% of the vote since there are three trustees to elect?
The Instant Runoff RCV on the Oak Park ballot disenfranchises voters to an extent. In the real world, voting involves choosing between specific candidates competing against each other. Your vote might change depending upon which two candidates are in the “finals,” so to speak. The proposed RCV doesn’t allow for that choice.
All in all, the well-intentioned ballot measure to establish ranked choice voting for Oak Park is not even needed since the political polarization it is aimed at alleviating doesn’t exist in Oak Park. And RCV simply makes no sense and is disenfranchising when it comes to the multiple village trustee seats.
Reject this referendum and come back with a more carefully crafted version of ranked choice voting just for the village president and village clerk positions that elect a single office holder.
Daniel Lauber has been a volunteer of the year of the Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization and was active in Oak Park’s Common Sense and Education First parties of yesteryear.