| Alex Harrison | Evanston RoundTable |
Three years after Evanston voters approved a referendum to adopt ranked choice voting in city elections, the city government is preparing to join a refiled lawsuit aimed at compelling the Cook County Clerk’s Office to actually implement the new voting system.
A November 2022 referendum to adopt ranked choice for electing the city’s mayor, clerk and councilmembers passed decisively with over 82% support, and city officials intended to use the new system for the first time in the April 2025 election cycle. But when the county clerk’s office, which runs suburban elections, asserted that such a change would require changes to state law, City Council adopted an ordinance ordering its implementation in June 2024, and nonprofit advocate group Reform for Illinois sued the office that July to compel the county clerk to do so.
Home rule powers
Several Evanston residents with Reform for Illinois wrote that the organization would refile the suit in a recent letter to the editor and city spokesperson Cynthia Vargas confirmed to the RoundTable that the city will join as a plaintiff. Election attorney Ed Mullen, who has represented the plaintiffs throughout the case, said Tuesday that the refiling request should be submitted to the circuit court by the end of next week. Mullen also noted that a main question at play is whether the city can enact ranked choice voting through its home rule powers, which give municipalities like Evanston broad authority on local laws and policies.