COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio election officials have approved ballot measures that will cover the following topics: this fall’s number 1a measure to redraw electoral districts that requires gerrymandering, while the proposal aims to do just the opposite.
The Republican-controlled Ohio Ballot Board approved the text Wednesday in a 3-2 vote along party lines, two days after the Republican-led the state Supreme Court voted 4-3 to correct various defects that the judges had found in what the Council had already adopted.
The Supreme Court ordered two of the eight challenged parts of the ballot measure to be rewritten, while leaving the other six that proponents had challenged in place. The court’s three Democratic justices dissented.
Citizens Not Politicians, the group behind the November 5 amendment, charged last monthclaiming the language is “perhaps the most biased, inaccurate, misleading and unconstitutional” the state has ever seen.
The bipartisan coalition’s proposal calls for replacing Ohio’s problematic political map system with a 15-member citizens’ commission made up of Republicans, Democrats and independents. The proposal came about after seven different versions of congressional and legislative maps drawn after the 2020 census were declared unconstitutional, gerrymandered to favor Republicans.
Sen. Paula Hicks-Hudson, D-Toledo, one of two Democrats on the ballot, told reporters after the meeting that “this was done and created for the primary purpose of misleading voters.” Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who is chairing the ballot, did not answer questions from the press after the vote.
In Monday’s opinion, the majority of the high court noted that it can only invalidate language approved by the voting board if it finds that the wording “would mislead, deceive, or defraud the voters.” The majority found that most of the language in the approved summary and title did not do so, but merely described the broad change in detail.
The two areas the judges found were misstated concern when a lawsuit can be filed to challenge the new commission’s redistricting plan and the public’s ability to provide input into the mapping process.
The exact wording of the constitutional amendment are posted at polling stations.