Evanston City Council looks to reaffirm ranked choice voting with ordinance

Evanston City Council voted 7-1 on an ordinance to move forward and reaffirm its commitment to upholding the will of voters who approved a Nov. 8, 2022 referendum to become the first city in the state to establish a ranked choice voting system for municipal elections.

The ordinance establishes ranked choice voting as described in the 2022 referendum and makes ranked choice voting the method by which all elected officers shall be selected to serve in the city. It also directs the Cook County Clerk to implement the voting method and pledges full cooperation by the city to assist the county in implementation.

The voting system would see voters rank their preferred candidates in numerical order. The candidate with the fewest votes after the first round gets eliminated and those voters who chose them as their top pick will see their vote be transferred to their second choice pick. The process is repeated until a majority is reached and a winner is declared.

According to a memo, the Cook County Clerk’s Office has yet to take steps forward to establish the new system by the April 1, 2025 municipal elections despite several requests made by the city. Mayor Daniel Biss hopes the ordinance’s passing will push the county to take action, said the memo.

Councilmember Devon Reid, who has in the past been skeptical of the method the city took to implement ranked choice voting, questioned the need for the ordinance at the June 10 City Council meeting. He has stated he is also skeptical using ranked choice voting will improve the city’s current primary system.

“My core belief is that any change to voting systems should be done with the goal of increasing voter participation and ease of access,” Reid told Pioneer Press. “Ranked choice voting has not been proven to do either.”

Biss stated the city originally planned to enter into litigation with the County Clerk’s Office but in light of the unexpected illness and death of Cook County Clerk Karen Yarborough in early April the city decided to take a different approach.

“I thought it was totally inappropriate for the city under those circumstances to enter into a hostile litigation with the County Clerk’s Office, so we backed off,” Biss said. “There are outside groups that are concerned about the pace of implementation of this, who are interested in continued advocacy on this topic, and this ordinance is something … (that) could potentially be a relevant part of implementation.”

Biss stated the ordinance is an “act in support” of the will of voters who want to see ranked choice voting on the 2025 ballot.

Reid pushed back, saying the city was actually hoping to receive an update on the voting method’s legality, not to move forward with litigation.

“It seems as though we don’t know why we’re passing this ordinance,” he said. “It doesn’t achieve the goals that, folks like myself who have raised concerns, that an implementation ordinance would need to have in it.”

Reid argued that the ordinance needed more language around ballot design, and more information, including about how votes are counted. He also said the ordinance should have been passed before the issue went on the ballot.

“Ranked choice voting sounds great but if the details are not there, we could potentially be implementing a system that makes it tougher for folks to vote, not easier,” he said. “We have dropped the ball on this.”

He voted against the ordinance, maintaining his assertion that the city’s method of going to referendum before fleshing out the rules and educating the public will in the end lead to the vote being overturned if challenged in court.

Despite voting in favor of the ordinance, Councilmember Clare Kelly also expressed concern about the city’s method and seconded a motion by Reid to table the ordinance until the city’s next meeting. That motion failed.

Councilmember Bobby Burns supported the ordinance as a “team player” and said he hopes it encourages the county to give the city some answers.

“I think he’s (Reid) right,” Burns said. “The fact we’re coming back now to pass this ordinance suggests that he is correct in his concerns.”

Naperville could follow Evanston’s lead with non-profit FairVote circulating petitions to add a ranked choice voting referendum to its April 2025 ballot. FairVote hopes to get the necessary 4,000 signatures by November in order to add the referendum to the ballot.

The ordinance will come before City Council for a final vote on June 24.