Illinois State Senator Rachel Ventura (D-Joliet) has introduced SB 2158, which would establish a top-two system. It even extends the top-two system to presidential elections. Here is the text. See page 45 of the bill, in which section 7-60 would say, “Not withstanding any other provision of law, the two candidates in any primary election who receive the most votes in the primary election, regardless of the party affiliation of the candidates, shall be the only two candidates certified to participate in the general election.”
All Illinois primaries for federal and state office are in early March, so this bill, if enacted, would require anyone who wanted to run in November to file in late November of the odd year before the election year.
Ordinarily, supporters of top-two never write their bills or initiative to include presidential elections, because if they did, the major party presidential nominees wouldn’t be the same in each state. For example, in 2016, the Illinois presidential primary totals for the top three candidates were: Hillary Clinton 1,039,555; Bernie Sanders 999,494; Donald Trump 562,464. Under the terms of SB 2158, the only presidential candidates who would be on the November ballot in Illinois would have been Clinton and Sanders.
Another interesting aspect of this proposed bill, if I read it correctly (and correct me if I’m wrong), is that it would have the effect of changing the petition signature amounts of non-Democrat/Republican candidates from 5%, to the .5% currently required of candidates running in primaries, and 5,000 signatures for statewide office. If it were applied in, say, IL-12 where 360,000 voted in 2024, the drop would be from around 18,000 valid signatures to 1,800. It’d practically be worth being shut out of the general election in most cases just to consistently get on the ballot at all, especially in the instances when we minor partiers and Independents did slip through to the general.
Given both ruling party Establishment’s hostility towards the rights of minor parties and Independents, combined with the problems it would have with Presidential elections, is why this bill is either going to be edited wholesale, or shelved.