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If voter turnout for Tuesdays election indicates the health of our democracy this Fourth of July holiday, the patient may well be on life support.

A dismal 19.2% of suburban Cook County voters cast ballots in this years belated gubernatorial primary, the county clerks office reported. A pathetic 18.7% of registered voters turned out in Will County. In Chicago, 300,000 of the citys 1.5 million registered voters bothered to show up.

Our democracy and the principle of majority rule are in peril, and only one in five voters seems to care.

Illinois voters seemed unfazed that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled four days before the election that women did not have a constitutional right to abortion, after all. The court overturned the nearly 50-year-old precedent of Roe v. Wade, but the decision did not seem to motivate more people to vote Tuesday.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol convened a hastily scheduled hearing Tuesday to hear blockbuster testimony from White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.

The committee is establishing with increasing certainty that Republican lawmakers and operatives participated in a plot to overturn the will of the people in a free and fair election by using violence to stop the process of certifying Joe Biden as winner of the 2020 presidential election.

Yet turnout would seem to indicate most people in Oak Lawn, Orland Park, Tinley Park and other communities in the south and southwest suburbs treat the revelations with a collective yawn.

Gas prices and inflation, thats what seems to matter most to many at the moment.

America seems largely unaware of the effort to chip away at rights, freedoms and protections. Most adults are busy with work, family and other matters. Many prefer to escape the nastiness of politics with entertainment.

The Jan. 6 committee seems to grasp the urgent need to grab peoples attention. What President Donald Trump and Republican co-conspirators did in their failed attempt to keep Trump in power went far beyond politics as usual.

They schemed to have state legislatures instead of voters decide which candidate should be awarded a states Electoral College votes. Republicans control legislatures in 30 states, thanks to gerrymandering.

In Illinois, Democrats have used the same tactics that Republicans have used in other states to create districts that are rarely competitive. Illinois Republicans should be outraged by how Democrats have created supermajorities by gerrymandering the GOP into irrelevance.

The current 18-member Illinois congressional delegation consists of 13 Democrats and five Republicans. There are 73 Democrats and 45 Republicans in the Illinois House. The Illinois Senate has 40 Democrats and 18 Republicans.

Democratic voters outnumber Republicans in Illinois, but the margin is not greater than two to one, as party representation numbers would indicate. In a fair system, there would be more balance.

Most districts are stacked so heavily to favor one party that the other party doesnt even bother expending resources to field an opposing candidate. The vast majority of Illinois lawmakers in Tuesdays election and in every election are uncontested.

Illinois Republicans, however, make little noise about the need to fix the broken system of creating districts after the census every 10 years. Criticizing Illinois Democrats too loudly might force them to admit Republicans in Ohio, Florida, Texas and other states use the same tactics to create unfair advantages.

Congress ought to fix the problem at the federal level and create a fair set of rules that could be applied in every state. Courts have shown they have no interest in correcting the inequity.

Weve evolved from dirty tricks of President Richard Nixons Watergate scandal to one party willing to resort to violence to prevent the other party from taking office.

Some will ignore the facts and believe the lies, so long as people like Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Georgia, are willing to describe the Capitol riot as a normal tourist visit.

Too many other decent people are content to sit on the sidelines. They may not like the direction the country is headed, but they probably figure they cant do much about it.

People could make a difference, though, if they would vote in every election. Turnout is always robust for presidential elections every four years, typically around 75%. Americans like a binary choice. Yea or nay, up or down, red or blue.

Its harder to choose from among six Republicans running for governor, or to pick three names from a list of eight candidates for school board.

But state and local elections are just as important as the presidential contest. Republicans targeted down ballot races after President Barack Obama took office in 2008. The Tea Party scored huge gains in 2010, and what we are experiencing today is a result of efforts to win elections at every level.

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One way people could overcome negative effects of gerrymandering would be if greater numbers unexpectedly voted. When turnout is only 20%, a few thousand people could make a huge impact.

Young people, in particular, ought to feel the need to pay attention and get involved. Tuesdays election was consistent with all other elections in that turnout was greater among older voters.

Those who care about democracy, freedom and independence need to figure out a way to increase turnout. Maybe some of the tens of millions of dollars spent attacking opponents in the Illinois gubernatorial primary could have been put to better use in a voter participation effort.

In the 1990s, MTV partnered with the Rock the Vote organization to encourage young people to vote. Madonna and other celebrities appeared in public service announcements that sought to engage 20-somethings in politics.

A similar effort is needed today to underscore the threats to our free and fair elections. The only foreseeable solution is to increase voter participation. If turnout remains a paltry 20%, we will only have ourselves to blame if we lose personal freedoms.

Ted Slowik is a columnist for the Daily Southtown.

tslowik@tribpub.com

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Column: Personal freedom was on the ballot Tuesday. Only 20% of voters bothered to show up. - Chicago Tribune