(08/25/17) - Are Michigan's political maps fair? That's the question at the heart of this petition drive.

The group 'Voters Not Politicians' is now collecting signatures for a petition drive to change the state constitution to end political gerrymandering in Michigan.

For volunteers like Suzanne Pearce, the process of collecting signatures begins sometimes with a civics lesson.

“A lot of people do not know what gerrymandering means, so we explain that to them,” Pearce said.

Gerrymandering is the process of setting political districts, done every 10 years after the census. The Republican-controlled state legislature sets districts now, but the group pushing the petition would like to see a 13 member commission redraw districts.

“They are going to have five independent people, four Republicans, four Democrats, form a panel, a committee, and then they would shape the district so it's not political, it's makes the people's vote count,” Pearce said.

Democratic candidates received more votes in state house races in recent elections years, but the Republicans hold a healthy majority.

“We learned about this stuff in my political science class,” said Delaney Christilaw, of Auburn.

Christilaw is 20 years old, but understands the complexity of the gerrymandering issue. She signed the petition.

“I thought it was interesting that these people were doing that, so they can get away with kind of shifting it to get more voters,” Christilaw said.

Jim Bauer, of Saginaw, says the way the districts are set up favors Republicans.

“I think the state is set up unfairly, it's rigged to one party,” he said. “They've got these narrow little bands where they allow the Democrats to vote, like Flint through Saginaw.”

The group started getting people to sign last week.

“We've got a lot of signatures,” Pearce said.

The group will have to collect about 316,000 valid signatures to get the the proposed constitutional amendment on the November 2018 ballot.