By Greg Halbleib
Election-related petitions are usually passed around before the polling places open, but one group is asking for signatures on election day in an effort to create non-partisan district maps.
Dave Mellet is the campaign manager for Independent Maps, a statewide coalition that’s circulating petitions for an Illinois constitutional amendment to reform legislative redistricting. “The idea here is to stop the strategic carving of districts so that you put a certain number of one party in one district and a certain amount of the other and guarantee that your own party gets to win elections for the next ten years, and maintain a larger majority than would be fair under an impartial mapping system,” Mellet told WJBC’s Steve Fast.
Mellet says volunteers will ask voters leaving the polling places for signatures on the primary election day of March 15. The group has a goal of 600,000 signatures and is about 85 percent toward that goal. More information is at MapAmendment.org.
