When the General Assembly moved up the state's primary election date from mid-March to February 2 to help out a certain home state presidential candidate, election reformers warned that the short primary season was undemocratic and aided well-known and well-financed incumbents. With the election now just four weeks away, there's been a cavalcade of stories stressing this point.

The Chicago Current's Alex Parker attended a press conference for retiring Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool, who said voters are being "manipulated" by politicians who want to tamp down participation:

"It is the bitterest, coldest, iciest day of the year to discourage people from voting," he said, calling Illinois' voting system "rigged." The election that matters most, he said, happens in the primary season, not November.

Columnists Laura Washington and Greg Hinz echoed similar sentiments, the former warning that the weather limit turnout and the latter stressing that voters don't have enough time to bone up on the candidate's positions. Since a bill to push back the primary until the summer failed in 2009 -- a move Gov. Pat Quinn cited as important on his first day in the governor's mansion -- the electorate has no recourse but to come out and make their voices heard.

That's exactly what Sun-Times' columnist Carol Marin urged voters to do in her piece last Wednesday:

This a state with a history of embarrassing its citizens.

Now the only embarrassment left belongs to us if we don't have enough gumption left.

To care enough.

To vote.

If you want to vote and are not registered, the deadline is tomorrow. If you miss it, you can take advantage of "grace period voting," which means you can show up at limited locations between January 6 and 26 (in Cook County, that's the County Clerk's downtown office or five suburban mini-centers), register to vote, and cast a ballot all in one visit. (The catch is that grace period voters are not eligible to vote on Election Day.) The Illinois State Board of Elections provides more registration information here.