Ranked Choice Voting - From Advocacy to Adoption

Ranked Choice Voting - From Advocacy to Adoption

Andrew Szilva & Abigail Drumm

FairVote Illinois

Approved for 1 general CLE credit

Satisfaction with politics in the US has been stagnating at near historic lows, which has led voters to look for solutions, and the fastest growing of all the reform efforts is ranked choice voting. It has lots of benefits and an increasingly large amount of public support. But how do we go from voters’ desire for reform to elections that use ranked choice voting? That’s the question that Andrew Szilva, the executive director of FairVote Illinois, is addressing. The presentation will provide background on what ranked choice voting is, how it works, and what are the measurable benefits. Adoption of ranked choice voting in Illinois is governed by election law, which at the municipal level requires state law or approval via a referendum. The legal standing for this assertion will be reviewed, and other legal considerations for ballot questions will be discussed. It is within this legal framework that FairVote Illinois plans its strategy for enacting ranked choice voting across the state.

Andrew Szilva

Andrew joined FairVote Illinois in 2019 and became the organization’s executive director when it incorporated in 2020. Since that time, FairVote Illinois has become the grassroots leader for ranked choice voting in the state. The organization has played a central role in the adoption of ranked choice voting in Evanston and has provided expertise to many other governing bodies on the benefits and implementation of ranked choice voting. Andrew has represented FairVote Illinois in dozens of talks and presentations including radio and TV appearances on NPR’s WBEZ Chicago, Cities Talk 92.9FM, and Chicago Tonight – WTTW. Andrew originally hails from the south suburbs of Chicago. He has a PhD in Computational Chemistry where he developed computer algorithms to reduce the scaling of quantum mechanics calculations. He also has nearly 2 decades of business experience managing optimization projects in the transportation sector. Outside of his ranked choice voting advocacy work, he enjoys interesting math and logic puzzles.

Abigail Drumm

Abigail Drumm has been volunteering for FairVote Illinois for almost 3 years where she lends her sharp ability to analyze data and research all things electoral as the Policy & Research Lead. Abigail’s work has included drafting statewide RCV legislation and coauthoring a report detailing the state of election equipment in Illinois. She was appointed by the governor to serve on the state's Ranked Choice and Voting Systems Task Force which is currently meeting.