Fair Districts: Ensuring Every Vote Counts
In a democracy, every vote counts. Every vote is equal. Protecting the vote remains the primary objective of the League of Women Voters.
Any political party that makes a district more favorable to them, based on voting district boundaries, is guilty of gerrymandering. Both Democrats and Republicans are and have been guilty.
Gerrymandering allows some votes to count more than others, makes races less competitive, thwarts the will of the voters, wastes votes, marginalizes minority voters, increases polarization and locks up power. As a result, politicians are no longer accountable to their constituents.
Gerrymandering in basic terms
Gerrymandering is an effort to maximize the effect of supporter votes, while minimizing the effect of opponent votes through cracking, packing, hijacking and kidnapping.
Cracking: spreading opposition voters among many districts to dilute their influence.
Packing: concentrating opposition voters into a single electoral district to limit their influence in other districts.
Hijacking: drawing districts so that two opposition incumbents face each other, ensuring that one is eliminated.
Kidnapping: moving the home address of an opposition incumbent into another district.
History of Gerrymandering in Ohio
For 45 years, the LWV has been involved in efforts to reform the redistricting process. In 2015, Ohio voters passed a bipartisan redistricting plan by an overwhelming 71.5 percent. Then in 2018, Issue 1, a constitutional amendment outlining a redistricting reform process, passed in all 88 counties with 74.85 percent of the vote.
Despite the will of the people, a constitutional amendment, thousands of phone calls, postcards and yard signs, the Ohio Redistricting Commission (ORC), controlled by Republicans, presented five maps, each of which was rejected and found unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court. Contemptuously, at the eleventh hour and just ahead of the deadline, the ORC adopted one of the previously rejected maps for the 2022 elections.
Now, no matter which candidates most Ohioans vote for, Ohio’s gerrymandered congressional districts will likely result in an Ohio congressional delegation of 12 Republicans and four Democrats in the 2022 elections, and if allowed to stand, for the next decade. By contrast, under any of the top ten congressional plans that were generated through the citizen competition, the balance of Ohio’s congressional delegation would have depended on the preferences of the voters.
The partisan imbalance was created by splitting up counties and municipalities in a way that packed Democratic voters into four congressional districts and provided comfortable Republican majorities in