People always say they don’t vote because each election, whether local, state, or federal, only replaces one corrupt regime with another. This is not the true reason why voting seems pointless.

Voting seems pointless because many voters either don’t know or forget that putting people into positions of power is only part of our right to vote. The other part of our right is the ability to remove officials from office. The process is called a recall election.

Federal elections cannot be recalled. Only some states allow citizens to recall state officials. We are denied our right to recall state officials in Illinois.

The fear of being held accountable for one’s actions would go a long way in keeping corruption out of our Illinois Government.

Last April, the Illinois house passed a Recall Amendment, but Governor Blagojevich’s allies in the Senate blocked it.

By denying us our rights, I believe the state Senate just proved that Illinois is in dire need of a Constitutional Convention. I believe that neither money nor security nor anything else is worth the consequences of allowing someone to erode away our rights for any reason. This belief is especially strong when the right being denied to us is our right to remove corruption from our system of government. I believe people who vote share my opinion and that is the reason they still do vote.

I know upcoming elections may disprove my beliefs. This knowledge scares me.