Saturday’s column on crowded congressional primaries referenced the state’s Ranked-Choice and Voting Systems Task Force, charged with evaluating options ahead of the 2028 presidential primary. Its final report was originally due March 1, 2024, but the task force extended its deadline to June 30, 2025.
What I’d missed so far was passage this spring of Senate Bill 2456, which among other things “provides that the Access to Voting for Persons with Disabilities Advisory Task Force; the Public Financing of Judicial Elections Task Force; the Illinois Elections and Infrastructure Integrity Task Force; and the Ranked-Choice and Voting Systems Task Force are dissolved and the provisions creating the task forces are repealed on July 1, 2026 (rather than July 1, 2025).”
The task force met several times, which did incur at least some taxpayer expense. The agenda for the May 28, 2024, meeting includes minutes from a session a few weeks earlier that shows useful things happened, such as a walkthrough from the State Board of Elections and a review of ranked-choice voting laws elsewhere in the country.
The minutes also include a few phrases to twist a copy editor’s gut: “the eyes have it,” “right-in votes” and “ballots that are unreasonable by a scanner.” These and other whoopsies probably stem from using a talk-to-text transcription service, but combined with the fact that all the legitimately interesting discussion from May 6 seems unlikely to yield any fruit, or at the very least must be repeated should lawmakers ever try to restart the process, lead to frustration that this task force, like so many other efforts over the years, appears to be spinning tires in the mud.
Ranked choice voting may not change or improve anything in Illinois. It’s miles away from the state’s most significant priority. But the quiet dissolution of task forces – after launching them with rhetorical fanfare – contributes to the perception of politicians as better talkers than actors (and, specific to Illinois, of lawmakers giving themselves busywork to boost per diem collections).
ON THIS DAY: It’s been nearly 100 years since the release of the acclaimed 1925 silent movie version of “The Phantom of the Opera,” starring Lon Chaney in the titular role and Mary Philbin, born July 16, 1902, in Chicago, as Christine. The movie is free online from various sources.
Also readily available is the Los Angeles Times’ 1993 obituary for Philbin. After noting the actress “first came to the attention of Hollywood as an also-ran in a beauty contest,” the obit cited a 1990 LA Times critic calling Philbin’s “gloriously goofy silent movie performance almost delirious in its excess: One moment she’s the Love Zombie of the Opera; the next, she’s the Hysteric of the Opera.”
• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.
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