Illinois IRV Bill Nearing Adoption

The Illinois House yesterday debated SB439 and scheduled it for a third reading and additional short debate. The bill amends the Election Code, permitting municipalities to, by ordinance, require their local election authorities to provide ranked ballots to absentee voters in the United States military, or who will be outside the country on both the consolidated primary and election days, for the purpose of voting in municipal and township elections. The adoption of such an ordinance is conditioned on the submission of a written statement by the election authority attesting to the administrative ability of the authority to administer an election using a ranked ballot.

This type of ranked voting is commonly known as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) because it simulates a traditional runoff election, eliminating the need for an separate runoff election. IRV is normally used in order to replace plurality elections, which can result in the election of candidates with less than 50% of the vote, with majority elections, as IRV ensures that the winning candidate will always finish with greater than 50% of the total vote. In this particular case, the need for a separate primary election is also eliminated, consolidating both elections onto a single ranked ballot for those eligible.

According to the Center for Voting and Democracy, IRV has been shown to improve voter turnout and reduce negative campaigning. (It is suspected that negative campaigning is reduced because candidates attempt to reach out and earn second place rankings from their opponents' supporters.) IRV also completely eliminates any so-called spoiler effect, and can be found in the political platforms of both the Green and Libertarian parties. In addition, the reform has enjoyed sporadic support from organizations and candidates associated with both the Democratic and Republican parties.

SB439 was passed by the Illinois Senate in an overwhelming 56 to 0 vote back on 5/8/2007. The City of Springfield actually already adopted something substantially similar, by referendum not ordinance, last year, with the measure approved by a whopping 91% of voters. We are also stating to see local campaigns sprout up throughout the state, like IRV for Urbana.

Click here for a video explaning how IRV works. You can also click here if you want to know what Howard Dean, Chair of the national Democratic Party, thinks about IRV. McCain supports IRV, and Obama supported IRV in the Illinois Senate.