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As of April 2025, Chaundra Van Dyk was the head of Better Elections for Illinois, with leading supporters being State Reps. Maurice West (D-Rockford) and Kam Buckner (D-Chicago) and State Sen. Laura Murphy (D-Des Plaines). 1
Activities
Better Elections for Illinois is a campaign to bring ranked choice voting (RCV) to the state of Illinois. In RCV, voters rank candidates in order of preference from first preference to last preference, with the lowest-placed candidate being eliminated in rounds of tabulation and that candidate’s supporters’ votes being reallocated according to the next ordered preference. 1
Better Elections for Illinois claims that RCV will allow voters to “express their full range of preferences” instead of supporting “a compromise candidate.” It alleges such a system will “ensure the winner actually represents the will of the majority.” It also claims that “people of color” and “women” are “dramatically underrepresented” in the political process, and that “no president has ever been a woman or identified as a member of the LGBTQ+ community.” 1
Better Elections for Illinois wants to introduce ranked choice voting to both Democratic and Republican presidential primary elections. 1
As of April 2025, Better Elections for Illinois was supporting state legislation that considered the adoption of RCV in the state’s presidential primary elections while urging supporters to advocate for their state representatives to pass the bill. 1
As of July 2025, Better Elections for Illinois’ website had been replaced with a single embedded YouTube video which had been deleted, rendering the website empty of content. 2
Leadership
As of April 2025, Chaundra Van Dyk was the head of Better Elections for Illinois. 1 As of 2025, she was listed as a volunteer “Circle Keeper” at the North Lawndale Restorative Justice Community Court as well as the director of special program initiatives of Habilitative Systems. 3 4