Change comes from marching in streets and to the ballot box – Rockford Register Star

Ashley D. Williams pulled her face mask below her chin, took a deep breath and hollered a rousing challenge to hundreds of protesters gathered at Haskell Park on Tuesday night:

We're not here for entertainment, Williams said. We want change.

The 13th Ward: 12,000 people, but only 400 voted. Where are you all at? Get in the votes and I bet you we tip the scales. All of you 17 and older are you ready? We need to vote.

The crowd responded to Williams with an affirmative roar. The entire exchange lasted no more than 90 seconds.

In fact, 601 ballots were cast in Rockford's 13th Ward in the March 17 primary, representing a 12.3% voter turnout. Voter turnout in the 13th Ward was 23.2% in the 2016 primary and 43% in the general election that year. Williams' figures may have been a bit off, but that doesn't take anything away from her message.

The May 25 killing of a black man named George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer has stirred Williams and countless other protesters across the country to exercise their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble.

We can thank James Madison, the father of the Bill of Rights, for our freedom to protest. Williams reminds us that there is another way to make change. Lawmakers manufacture laws, but it's voters who manufacture lawmakers. If we want change, it seems we'll have to make it ourselves, and that means exercising our right to vote.

Ninety-one percent of Americans said that the right to vote was essential to their personal freedom, according to a 2017 Pew Research Center poll. Yet, in a wonderfully insightful NBC News column published Thursday, David Litt points out that the number of Americans stripped of the right to vote has surged in recent decades.

Thanks primarily to the wave of mass arrests and convictions caused by the war on drugs and the so-called tough on crime laws that came with it, 6 million adults 3 million of whom were no longer even on probation or parole who would otherwise have been eligible to vote were unable to cast ballots in 2016, says Litt, a former senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama.

Moreover, notes Litt, America's backlogged immigration system has swelled the ranks of long-term residents immigrants who pay taxes, build businesses, create jobs and serve in the military, but cannot cast a ballot to decide how the country is run. Voter suppression laws, partisan gerrymandering and demographic shifts have created even more inequities in our country's electoral system.

None of these obstacles minimizes the urgency of Williams' call to action. Those who can vote must do so. And voting in local elections is the easiest way to manufacture change.

This November, Winnebago County voters will elect a state's attorney who, for the next four years, will decide whether to investigate and charge instances of police misconduct, assault, stalking, cyberbullying and hate crimes.

Next year, Rockford voters will elect a mayor and 14 aldermen. It is the mayor who appoints, and City Council that confirms, members of the Board of Fire and Police Commissioners. The commission has the sole power to hire, fire and discipline the city's police chief and fire chief. Reviewing police misconduct and penalizing those found guilty is also part of the commission's role.

Additionally, the mayor plays an active role in negotiating labor contracts between the city and its police union. The City Council approves these contracts.

These critical local government functions are often quite dull to watch. And like most obligations, voting isn't much fun, either.

But as Williams said: We're not here for entertainment.

Isaac Guerrero: iguerrero@rrstar.com; @isaac_rrs

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Change comes from marching in streets and to the ballot box - Rockford Register Star