EDWARDSVILLE — The Madison County Board will vote Wednesday night to place an advisory referendum on the November ballot asking voters if they should join other counties looking to succeed from Cook County.
Chairman Pro-Tem Mick Madison said the referendum, which would appear on the Illinois General Election ballot on Nov. 5 will ask voters, “Shall the board of Madison County correspond with the boards of other counties of Illinois, outside of Cook County, about the possibility of separating from Cook County to form a new state and to seek admission to the Union as such, subject to the approval of the people?”
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Madison, who serves County Board District 5, said of the state’s 102 counties only a few counties decide the fate of the state.
“The rest of the people in the remaining counties feel unrepresented,” Madison said. “They disagree with how Illinois is governed. The vast majority of Illinois is run without their consent.”
Madison said the positives of the referendum are two-fold — one being we can look for possible solutions to decide who will run the state and it also allows voters to directly tell Illinois legislators how they feel in a formal vote.
“People I’ve spoken with on both sides of the aisle are wildly in favor of this,” Madison said.
He said he believes the County Board would like to see where the voters fall on this issue.
“If they say yes, we’ll work with other counties in Illinois to see if we can find a solution we all agree on,“ he said. “It might be a new state. It may be something else.”
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