Getting people to vote

Candidates for mayor and the Chicago City Council are telling us their plans to reach Chicago’s goals: public safety, well-paying jobs, good schools, decent housing and strong communities. But what they aren’t telling us as they attack one another from the podium (“Candidates swipe at Johnson in final debate,” Feb. 15), is how they will bring us together after the election to achieve these aims.

To succeed, we will need election reforms that engage elected officials and residents in a cooperative effort to achieve the goals that Chicagoans of different ages, sex, race and income want for our wonderful city. Something is wrong when we’ve made it easy to vote, yet too many residents will stay home from the polls. They’ve become cynical and are thus disengaged from the election of the officials closest to our everyday lives. A democracy without voters is hardly a democracy, and right now, voters don’t trust elections to make things better.

They’ve watched politicians create ward maps that support a candidate’s personal interest over the interests of Chicago communities. “Dark money” pushes corporate interests over the needs of working men and women. Parents teaching their children to be civil cringe as candidates lob attacks at each other.

To ensure election outcomes that help us work together to find solutions, we need ranked choice voting paired with easier ballot access to give voters choices without fear that their vote won’t count. We need independent redistricting to keep our communities whole. We need public campaign financing to end suspicions about who is really calling the shots — voters or big money.

These changes are neither left nor right — they are a way forward toward engaging all Chicagoans. The vision and recommendations can be found in many places; I like FairVoteIllinois.org and ForwardParty.com/Illinois.

— Abigail Nichols, Chicago