West Cook News

The Oak Park village board recently discussed an ordinance to put ranked choice voting on the next election.

During a Dec. 5 village board meeting, the board considered the adoption of ranked choice voting on the 2023 ballot. They discussed exactly how to phrase the referendum about the proposed change in voting style. 

Ranked choice voting occurs when multiple candidates are running for a seat; a candidate can be chosen that doesn’t receive the overall majority of the vote (40%, 35%, 25%). With ranked choice voting, where voters rank all of the candidates if a candidate doesn’t achieve an overall majority, the secondary rankings come into play to show who is more favored overall.

The purpose of the discussion on this topic was to determine exactly how the ranked choice voting for trustee elections would work, as they have to be specific to put it on the ballot in spring 2023. To get it on the April ballot, they would have to call a special meeting on Jan. 9 to be able to submit it by the Jan. 17 deadline. The trustees had a lot of discussion on the issue; they all felt the weight of changing how democracy runs in Oak Park. 

"You know, from what I understand about ranked choice voting and you know as a very Democratic community, a community that values responding to our residents, listening to our residents, and transparency. This board has worked considerably to advance transparency in the process," Oak Park Board President Vicki Scaman said at the meeting. "In all of our decision-making there's there are quite a few differences. I'm very supportive of ranked choice voting, particularly on the national level. And so I'm going to be listening intently to our dialog tonight for that evaluation of whether it's right for us here in Oak Park."

Many of the trustees asked the village attorney to create a few different options of language to phrase the referendum so that they could examine all their options. Some questioned if it was necessary for electing trustees as the village currently elects three at a time, which eliminates non-popular choices. All the trustees were overall supportive of ranked choice voting but did not want to rush the issue. They were concerned about proceeding how the residents wanted, and with enough community education that they felt confident in the decision. They tabled the discussion until Jan. 9 for everyone to do more research.