Through at least one way of looking at it, the Bronx is a red state.

According to a wonderfully depressing map created by WNYC.org, much of the Boogie Down is splattered in tomato red. The map shows voter turnout in every neighborhood in the city by varying degrees of redness — the lower the turnout, the brighter the red.

Sure, there are pockets of light pink and near-white, but more than two-thirds of Bronx neighborhoods saw voter turnout rates of under 20 percent.

The Norwood neighborhood, which is broken down into several Census tracks, each containing several thousand people, is red like a fire truck with percentages ranging from 10 percent to a high of 12 percent.

Keep in mind, those numbers come from the last mayoral general election in 2009. Turnout numbers are even less and more depressing during primaries, which is when the overwhelmingly Democratic Bronx almost always determines its elected officials.

Let’s think about this in a different way for a second. If Norwood were a family of five trying to decide what to eat for dinner and only 10 percent of the family voted on a meal, they would only eat half the time.

The point is that by not voting, we’re not taking part in the decision-making process that determines how our city is run. People love to complain, but by not voting, we are ceding any control over the decisions being made.

Whatever. Who cares? But seriously, my daughter’s school is terrible, they only teach to the test! How does this happen?  

This makes it incredibly difficult for Bronxites to dispose of its bad representatives and show elected officials they should be listened to.

By any measure, 14th District Council Member Maria Baez was a terrible elected official. Her district office was unresponsive to the point of being dismissive. She compiled the worst attendance record of any member in the Council and she failed to pass any legislation to make her struggling district’s neighborhoods better.

Still, in her re-election bid in 2009, Baez received support from several Bronx officials and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is now running for mayor. The election came down to 5,473 votes in the Democratic primary (about 10 percent of the voting age population). She barely lost by 75 votes to Fernando Cabrera.

Opinions of Cabrera may vary, but the fact is, he has an impeccable attendance record (two weeks ago he flew home from Peru to vote on the Community Safety Act, which brings more oversight to the NYPD and should help curb rampant and unconstitutional stop-and-frisk tactics), provides solid constituent services and has introduced dozens of pieces of legislation, including the bill to provide more detailed crime statistics to the public, legislation the Norwood News pushed in stories and editorials during the past several years, which passed into law this summer.

Cabrera’s victory was, in many ways, a fluke. But it speaks to the power of electing thoughtful, responsive elected officials. He isn’t facing a primary challenger this year because people don’t have a whole lot to complain about and he has a record to stand on.

It is the exception to the rule.

Former State Senator Efrain Gonzalez, who represented much of the northwest Bronx, was another terrible elected official who was re-elected eight times. He’s now spending his days in prison for stealing taxpayer money while in office and was replaced (before his conviction) by fellow felon Pedro Espada. They both took advantage of traditionally low turnout.

New York University recently produced a report on who doesn’t vote in the city and found a handful of commonalities. Those who don’t vote are often men, young people, the under-educated, transient residents and naturalized citizens. This description, unfortunately, fits the population of the Bronx.

It’s a cycle that perpetuates itself. Many young Bronx males struggle to graduate high school, let alone succeed in college. When Bronxites do succeed, they often leave, and take their votes with them.

We need to make it more attractive for successful people to stay in the Bronx. We need to elect quality elected officials who are responsive and active and working to make the Bronx a better place to live. We need to let citywide officials know we want dinner too.

We need to vote, starting with the primary on Tuesday, Sept. 10.

Editor’s note: This editorial was originally published in the Sept. 5-18 print edition of the Norwood News.