Ohio elections are coming up, and Issue 1 is on the ballot, giving Ohioans a chance to weigh in on potential redistricting reform.
We caught up with Citizens Not Politicians, the organizers behind Issue 1, to hear more about it.
First, when, where and how do I vote in the November election?
We’ve got a guide for that! Here are all the voting deadline details you need to know.
What is Issue 1, and what is ‘Citizens Not Politicians’?
Issue 1, if passed, would change Ohio’s redistricting process with the aim of addressing potential cases of gerrymandering in the state, according to Chris Davey, a spokesperson for the organization.
Ohio’s district maps have traditionally been determined by politicians and leaders appointed by politicians. Citizens Not Politicians aims to change the process, creating a new Citizens Redistricting Commission that would prohibit politicians from participating in the map-drawing process.
“It's right in our name: citizens, not politicians,” Davey says. “That's the main thing people need to understand, is that we're going to get politicians out of the map drawing room, and we're going to put citizens in charge.”
How would the new system work?
A bipartisan screening panel would select Ohioans from across the political spectrum to compose a 15-member redistricting commission (five Democrats, five Republicans and five independents). Retired judges would first narrow down the application pool and randomly choose the first six members.
The Citizens Redistricting Commission would replace the existing Ohio Redistricting Commission and would be responsible for drafting future statehouse and congressional maps. The group would do this in an open and public manner that could involve public participation, according to the organization’s proposed amendment.
Both current and former politicians would be barred from participating in the new commission, along with political party officials and lobbyists.
You can read the full proposed amendment at Citizens Not Politicians’ website.
How and why did this get on the ballot?
The past decade of redistricting reform in Ohio has been turbulent. In 2015, voters passed a constitutional amendment to replace the Ohio Apportionment Board (which previously drew district maps from 1851 until 2011) with the Ohio Redistricting Commission. In 2018, voters passed another constitutional amendment to create a more bipartisan process for drawing congressional districts, and to make stricter guidelines for forming districts.
However, when the redistricting process came around again following the 2020 Census, Ohio Democrats objected to submitted maps and took them to the Supreme Court of Ohio. The Supreme Court rejected the maps multiple times, finding that they did not comply with the state constitution.
In 2022, federal judges implemented a previously submitted map they called “the best of our bad options” — one that’s been accused of gerrymandered districts and has been the subject of lawsuits from the League of Women Voters and the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, according to Ohio Capital Journal reports.
“We have thousands of leaders across the state of Ohio, and all 88 counties, across the political spectrum — Republicans, Democrats and independents — who have just seen with their own eyes that this system is broken,” Davey says. “It doesn't work, and we need to fix it.”
How have some Ohioans supported the initiative?
Plenty of them signed the petition, which received more than half a million signatures from citizens all over the state. It was well above the 442,958 signatures required to get on the ballot (10% of votes cast for governor in the previous election). And, to get technical, it easily passed other requirements too, Davey says. “It took us nearly a year. We had volunteers in all 88 counties, and we ended up, of course, getting the total requirements statewide,” Davey says, “but the additionally extraordinary thing is that we got the 5% threshold in 58 counties, which is an all-time record in the more than a century that we've had this process in Ohio.”
(A photo of the signatures the Citizens Not Politicians petition received.)
How is gerrymandering a problem in the state?
According to 2024 data from demographic data organization World Population Review, Ohio is one of the top 11 most gerrymandered states in the country, favoring Republicans. "Although the total number of votes cast for each major party is consistently close in Ohio, gerrymandering techniques known as 'packing' and 'cracking' enabled the party that drew the maps to win 75% of the seats (12 of 16) in 2016 despite earning only 50–60% of the votes," World Population Review states.
You can look at the sixth congressional district to see some of Ohio's gerrymandering issues. The 200-mile-long district runs from rural Washington County and snakes through various towns, reaching into urban Youngstown — cutting through communities and school districts.
The borders also combine culturally distinct places. University of Cincinnati political science professor David Niven analyzed the sixth district for the League of Women Voters of Ohio, showing unique economic, cultural and even meteorological differences within the district. “This is a district drawn to make representation difficult,” Niven states in the report. “This is a district of strangers.”
Past updates to Ohio's redistricting process have corrected some issues related to gerrymandering in the state, such as an earlier version of the ninth district popularly dubbed the "Snake by the Lake," which stretched along Lake Erie's coast and fractured Toledo and Cleveland.
But the state's history with gerrymandering goes further back — and even was used by Democrats in the 1800s to gain power and control in Ohio, writes Michael F. Curtin, a former Columbus Dispatch editor and member of the Ohio House of Representatives.
Why does gerrymandering happen?
Davey says some politicians gerrymander districts to maintain power and avoid facing opponents in both primary and general elections. “And a really critical thing to emphasize is that gerrymandering is one of the few truly bipartisan scams in our divided country,’ he says. “It’s one of the few things that Democrats and Republicans join hands and embrace together.”
He adds: “What gerrymandering does is it creates a situation where Democrats and Republicans both get to run in cozy, little districts; very often they don’t even face opposition.”
Do other places have citizen-led redistricting commissions?
Yes. Davey says Citizens Not Politicians took inspiration from what worked in other commissions in California, Missouri, Michigan, Arizona and other places.
Is the ballot finalized?
Yes, the ballot language has been finalized, and just in time for overseas and military voting which begins on Friday Sept. 20. The ballot board made two small revisions on Sept. 18, after Citizens Not Politicians sued the Ohio Ballot Board.
What was the lawsuit about?
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who is a Republican member of the Ohio Redistricting Commission and who opposes the amendment, wrote a description of the amendment and the Ohio Ballot Board approved it, 3-2 along party lines, in August. Then, Citizens Not Politicians challenged it, filing a lawsuit with the Ohio Supreme Court against both the Ohio Ballot Board and LaRose, claiming that the ballot language was misleading.
The approved language states that Issue 1’s new redistricting commission would be “required to gerrymander” districts in Ohio. Supporters of Issue 1 say the wording is misrepresentative and counter to their effort to end gerrymandering.
With a Republican majority 4-3 vote on Monday, Sept. 16, the Ohio Supreme Court approved most of the language, with two minor revisions. One change clarifies language around the public being able to express itself to a potential new redistricting commission, while the other change clarifies how and when judicial review challenges to the amendment can be filed.
But some Ohio Supreme Court justices wanted further changes to the ballot language. "We should be requiring a nearly complete redrafting of what is perhaps the most stunningly stilted ballot language that Ohio voters will have ever seen," wrote justice Jennifer Brunner.
“The important thing about the ballot language is it doesn't change the fundamental substance of the amendment at all. It's just how it's misrepresented," Davey says. "Ohioans can go to citizensnotpoliticians.org, and read the amendment for themselves to understand how it works.”
You can find more details around Issue 1 at the Secretary of State’s website.
If Issue 1 doesn’t pass in the election, what happens next?
The Ohio Redistricting Commission would continue to operate as it normally does.
If Issue 1 passes in the election, what happens next?
The amendment would go into effect immediately, and a commission would be formed to draw maps that would be used in the 2026 legislative races in Ohio, Davey says. Those maps would be used through 2030, and then a new commission would be created in 2031 (after the next U.S. Census) to create Ohio’s district maps for the next decade.
Read more about Issue 1 at citizensnotpoliticians.org.
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