On the Tuesday afternoon of Illinois’ March primary, Rebecca Williams stood outside the Naperville Municipal Center as community members strolled in and out of the building — a polling place for the day.
Between her hands, she held a clipboard. On the back, it read: “Fixing politics starts with RANKED CHOICE VOTING.”
Williams was one of several canvassers at Naperville polling places last month to gather support for a local petition drive that would allow city residents to decide if they want to switch to a ranked choice voting system.
FairVote Illinois, a nonprofit whose mission is to educate about and advocate for ranked choice voting in Illinois, is heading the drive.
Ranked choice voting, or RCV, is an alternative electoral system that allows voters to rank candidates by preference. So instead of choosing a single candidate, voters can express their inclinations across a pool of choices from most to least preferred.
If successful, a binding referendum will be on Naperville’s April 2025 election ballot and voters will be asked they want to use ranked choice voting to elect the city’s mayor and council. If approved, it would be implemented in April 2027.
As of this week, FairVote had about 500 signatures on their referendum petition, Williams said. At least 4,000 are needed by Nov. 10 for the question to be on the ballot.
Williams said they’re “confident we are going to get the signatures.”
“The residents here,” she said, “seem to quickly understand the concept of (ranked choice voting) and appreciate the idea of having more choices when they vote.”
There are several forms of RCV, but the most common — and what FairVote Illinois is proposing for Naperville’s municipal elections — is instant-runoff voting.
With instant-runoff, if a candidate wins a majority of votes out the gate, they are declared the winner, Williams said.
But if no one wins a majority on the first count, preference ranking comes into play. The candidate with the fewest first-preference votes would be eliminated. In turn, ballots cast for that now-failed candidate as the top choice would be redistributed based on second-place preferences. That process continues until a candidate has a majority.
“It allows us to vote our true preference,” said Williams, who has worked as full-time FairVote Illinois organizer since 2022.
Advocates say a ranked choice system offers voters more options and reduces negative campaigning since candidates need to appeal to as wide a range of voters as possible to win not just first, but second- and third-preferences. They also argue the system gives third-party and independent candidates a better chance.
Opponents say the system is difficult to understand, especially for elderly and vulnerable voters, and that results are difficult to count. Another concern is the system goes against the fundamental “one person, one vote” principle of the American political system.
RCV isn’t a new concept, according to Stephen Maynard Caliendo, a North Central College political science professor and dean of the college of arts and sciences.
“I’ve been a political scientist professionally since the 1990s, and it was an issue back then,” he said.
RCV started gaining momentum after the 2000 presidential election, Caliendo said, when George W. Bush was elected over Al Gore without winning the popular vote.
“Part of that discussion was about how third party candidates might have impacted (the election),” Caliendo said.
Today, three states use RCV statewide, according to Ballotpedia, a nonpartisan encyclopedia that curates information on American federal, state and local politics. Fourteen states — including Illinois — contain localities that either use or are scheduled to begin using RCV in municipal elections. Six states have enacted legislation prohibiting RCV in any elections.
In November 2022, voters in Evanston overwhelmingly supported converting the city’s elections to RCV.
At the state level, Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a bill in August 2023 creating a task force to study the viability of ranked choice voting for Illinois, beginning with the 2028 presidential primary elections.
The task force’s findings and recommendations should be ready by the end of next month, according to state Sen. Laura Murphy, D-Des Plaines, who co-chairs the group with Rep. Maurice West, D-Rockford.
Asked about the recent push towards RCV, Caliendo said he didn’t think there was “anything particularly unique at the present moment” other than “the fact that there’s a perception of more polarization” and that “perhaps, an appetite for something other than the two major parties could be explored more meaningfully with a ranked choice system.”
FairVote Illinois also is working to place RCV referendums on this November’s ballot in Skokie and Oak Park, Williams said.
Naperville’s petition drive has been in the works since July 2023, she said, after a local township’s Democratic Party organization reached out to them to ask if RCV could be a good fit for the city. That’s typically how FairVote decides where to focus its efforts, she said.
“The key thing we look for when we decide to make a push in a new community is if there are local groups coming to us saying, ‘Hey, can you help us get (RCV) here?’” Williams said. “That was the case with Naperville.
“We really like Naperville because it is a very purple city,” she said. “We have this constant push and pull between conservative and progressive. And ranked-choice is really fantastic in terms of moderating the candidates.”
It could have made a difference in the outcome of the city’s city council election in April 2023, for example, she said.
There were 11 candidates vying for four open council seats. The top vote-getter was Patrick Kelly, who snagged 13.5% of votes, followed by Allison Longenbaugh at 13.12%, Josh McBroom at 11.97% and Nate Wilson at 9.49%. All but one of the remaining candidates received less than 10,000 votes each.
Pointing to those results, Williams said that with the city’s current proportional system, someone could “squeeze in” with a small percentage of the vote by having dedicated support from a small percentage of the community.
“RCV moderates that,” she said.
Through this summer and fall, FairVote plans to focus most of its signature gathering in Naperville, Williams said. They’ll also be working on an RCV education campaign.
Education is key, Caliendo said.
“What you wouldn’t want is for somebody to walk into the voting booth during that first election, when you have a new voting system, and be confused, not know what to do — be surprised,” he said. “There should be a really intentional public campaign to help voters understand that it’s going to look different.”
The League of Women Voters of Naperville is planning to help educate the public as well. On May 8, it will be hosting an online program with North Central College political science professor Suzanne Chod exploring different election styles and their impacts, league president Susan Craighead said.
They’re also conducting a study to evaluate the impact that RCV would have on elections in Naperville, she said.
“League positions support ranked choice voting as a possible alternative to plurality voting,” Craighead said in a prepared statement. “But just because it is a possible alternative does not necessarily mean it is right for Naperville.”
The Associated Press contributed.
