Does every vote count? Åsk Ald. Ray Suarez

Congratulations to anyone who bothered to pull on a parka and went out to vote. Cheers to every single soul who took civic responsibility seriously enough to make arrangements to either early vote or pick up an absentee ballot or trek out to a neighborhood polling place on a frigid Tuesday Election Day.

You are heroes and heroines in my book.

As Alma Toedter, the 76-year-old Republican Party chairwoman of downstate Putnam County, told me in no uncertain terms recently, “If you vote, you get to bitch.”

If you don’t vote, just shut up.

Don’t whine, complain or carry on about the “idiots” in government, the “crooks” who use politics for their own personal profit, or the “special interests” who seem to be just about anybody who runs for office.

And don’t — please don’t — cry about how the rich guys control everything and the little guys have no voice. Not if you didn’t consider casting a vote in the mayor’s race where the incumbent has in four years raised over 30 million campaign dollars from, in many cases, mega-rich pals who don’t even live here.

And especially don’t laugh that cynical Chicago laugh about how this city “still ain’t ready for reform.”

Not when a little effort and interest by voters can make all the difference.

For weeks in this column, I argued Rahm Emanuel needed a runoff because this city needs a deeper conversation before re-hiring him or hiring someone else.

Another example?

In the 31st ward on the Northwest side, Ald. Ray Suarez and his political patron, Joe Berrios, had total control. Berrios, after all is not only the assessor of Cook County but also the chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party.

Berrios is renowned for hiring every possible relative in his family in some well-paid capacity in city or county government. At last count, the number was 15 relatives.

Suarez is the city’s vice mayor and a guy who won’t call a City Council committee meeting unless the mayor tells him he may do so. Read R-U-B-B-E-R-S-T-A-M-P.

So where do voters come into this picture?

They had three other choices for alderman to — at the very least — force Suarez into a runoff and Berrios into another Come-to-Jesus moment following the stunning defeat of his state representative daughter, Toni, in November.

One of those choices, former Telemundo reporter Milly Santiago, fought a hard campaign with very little money.

She, in this race, became Suarez’s closest competitor.

How close?

Well, close enough that in a nail-biter Tuesday night in the 31st ward, Milly Santiago forced Ray Suarez into a runoff.

Voters — a measly small number of them — in the end carried Santiago on their shoulders even though her opponent was backed by the head of the Democratic Party of Cook County.

Tell me, just tell, every vote doesn’t matter?

But if you didn’t vote, don’t even talk to me unless you can show up for the runoff in April.