If your right to vote were taken from you right now, would you care?

If you had no voice in the workings of your community, what would you do? Would you take to the streets? Would you resist and rebel? Would you fight? Would you demand your right back?

OPINION

In many respects and in many places around Illinois, people cast ballots, but the outcome already is known. It’s rigged. We’re holding an election on Nov. 4 and 157 Illinois House and Senate seats will be on the ballot. But 77 of those seats will have only one candidate running. That means 49 percent, nearly half, of the races won’t be competitive. Voters won’t have any choice at all. In others, there might be more than one candidate, but the district’s lines have been drawn so that the politicians who drew them already know which party is likely to win.

This is the product of gerrymandering. Your rights and your votes are being stolen from you. Will you fight back?

Gerrymandering is where corruption is born. As soon as one political party leader or the other draws a line to create a gerrymandered district, corruption is born. Your vote is taken. Your voice is taken. Your choice is meaningless.

Right now, there are fair map amendments in both the Illinois House and Senate — HJRCA 43 and SJRCA 26 — that would create a 16-member independent redistricting commission to draw legislative boundaries in transparent, public action. Because of legal deadlines to get questions on the November ballot, lawmakers have to vote by Friday to give you the chance to say whether you want to try letting that commission draw legislative maps instead of political party chiefs, but those party chiefs so far haven’t allowed the amendments to be voted on.

It will take a lot of people standing up for their rights, resisting, rebelling and demanding change in the next few days to pressure our lawmakers to pressure the party leaders. And it’s the party chiefs who staff lawmakers’ campaigns and who give them money to pay for their re-election campaigns.

The party bosses count on us not to care. To have given up. Right now, it looks like they’ve won. We and the rank-and-file lawmakers who follow their rules have let them rob us of our rightful power.

Whether it’s Republicans drawing the maps or Democrats, as soon as they draw their own districts, they draw for self-preservation and self-interest.

Gerrymandering is where they steal our trust. It’s where they make our elections and our democracy a joke.

If I told you gerrymandering was why you rarely have two good choices for offices on a ballot, would you act up? If I told you gerrymandering was the reason why women don’t get ahead in government or politics, would you resist? It’s why we have so few minorities in positions of power in Illinois.

If I told you gerrymandering is the start of corruption and rigged elections, that it’s how the political parties have created a system where candidacies constantly are challenged and where you have to ask for a certain party’s ballot in a primary, would you care enough to do something?

If I told you gerrymandering was why we have pay-to-play politics and lawmakers who rig our property taxes and control us, would you take five minutes to call your lawmakers and demand change?

If I told you gerrymandering was the reason why politicians pay lip service and tend not to listen to you, would you care? If I told you gerrymandering was the reason why we have gridlock, budget impasses, people leaving Illinois and others hurt by late or limp funding, would that make you act up?

Minority lawmakers say they fear drawing maps a different way will mean fewer minorities get elected. Well, the fair map amendments have strong minority protections.

They created an independent commission in California and after that commission drew legislative maps, there was a 50-percent increase in minority representation.

Can a different way really be worse than rigged gerrymandering?

What if you called your representative and your senator and asked them to pressure their leaders to allow a vote before Friday for the Fair Maps amendments? What if you told your representative and your senator they needed to support the Fair Maps amendments and demand that their leaders allow a vote on the amendments if those lawmakers expect your support?

What if you tried to demand a vote on the fair map amendments? Is your voice and your vote worth it?

Here’s a link to a tool that will allow you to send your lawmakers an email telling them you want action on the Fair Maps amendments.

Madeleine Doubek is policy & civic engagement director at the Better Government Association.

Send letters to: letters@suntimes.com.