Residents of Oak Park will have the opportunity to answer a non-binding referendum question on their November ballots: Should the state of Illinois adopt an independent citizens’ commission for federal and state redistricting process?

The referendum question was added to the ballot at the April 9 Oak Park Township meeting after CHANGE Illinois, a nonprofit, nonpartisan governmental reform advocacy group, received more than the required 15 signatures. Citizens at the meeting then voted in favor of adding it.

“We [CHANGE Illinois] work to end redistricting and gerrymandering in the state of Illinois,” said DuShaun Branch Pollard, community organizing director for CHANGE Illinois. “We also work on ethics and efficiency in government.”

Gerrymandering is when politicians intentionally draw electoral districts in a way that benefits one political party over another, and often creates confusing boundaries. The consequence of this, according to CHANGE Illinois, is that politicians can choose certain voters and exclude others, limiting their voting power. If many districts are defined by gerrymandering, the voters’ representatives could fail to match the true majority’s political party.

In 2021, for example, Illinois Democrats used a supermajority to redraw district lines and put Republican voters and representatives into smaller districts, The Washington Post reported. The result was the addition of one new Democratic seat in the legislature and the loss of two Republican ones.

At the time, former U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican who criticized former U.S. President Donald Trump, quit after Illinois Democrats redrew the lines for his district, according to 2020 Census data. The result would have pit him against Darin LaHood, a Trump loyalist.

U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, another moderate Republican, fought to stay in his seat, but lost to Rep. Mary Miller, who closely aligned herself with Trump.

The Illinois Constitution requires lawmakers to redraw district lines every 10 years, after the U.S. Census is taken. Gerrymandering is often heard and talked about in the southern states, but it affects others, including Illinois, Branch Pollard said.

“It impacts a lot of people in so many different ways,” Branch Pollard said. “In the state of Illinois, the way the maps are drawn just make it really hard for a lot of different communities to engage with their politician.”

But the common effect is that it’s harder to hold politicians accountable, harder for residents to run and win election races and harder for community members to have a voice, Branch Pollard said.

If residents vote in favor of the referendum, they will be saying they support an independent commission drawing “fair maps” for Illinois.

The commission will do this, Branch Pollard said, by working with map makers and using census data to build maps that more accurately reflect the community. The commission would also likely seek public input, allowing community members to give opinions and have a say in the design of districts.

Nothing will change immediately, Branch Pollard said, but if communities such as Oak Park and others vote in favor of the referendum, CHANGE Illinois will take that information to state representatives as an enticement for changing the maps.

“It’s a very hard and long road to get the maps changed,” she said. “It’s not impossible … Our goal is just to go township by township, gain more support, gain more interest.”

Over the summer, CHANGE Illinois plans outreach and education in the communities that will have this referendum question on their ballots, including Oak Park.

“A lot of people aren’t familiar with how the maps are drawn,” she said. “We want people to be able to vote and share their opinion.”

When Branch Pollard lived in Chicago, she said the person living across the street had a different state representative than she did. That prevented her from working with those neighbors to talk to a mutual state representative about issues facing their community.

“It’s important for maps to reflect the communities that people live in,” she said. “It [current maps] just makes it harder to govern, but also to hold the elected officials accountable.”

Voters in Proviso and Rock Island will also have this question on their ballot in the November election.