Supporters of a proposal to reform Ohio’s problematic political mapping system have submitted the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed to get the statewide ballot this fall.
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Supporters of a proposal to change Ohio’s problematic political mapping system submitted hundreds of thousands of signatures Monday in an effort to qualify for the statewide ballot this fall.
The League of Women Voters President Jen Miller said the Citizens Not Politicians coalition delivered more than 700,000 petition signatures to the downtown Columbus office of Ohio Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose. LaRose is now working with the local elections board to verify that at least 413,446 signatures are valid and will place the proposition on the Nov. 5 ballot.
The group’s proposed amendments seek to replace Ohio’s current redistricting commission, which is made up of three statewide officials and four state legislators, with an independent body directly elected by the people. Membership on the new commission would be more diverse by party and region.
Their ballot effort was plagued by initial delays: Republican Attorney General Dave Yost twice challenged the petition’s language before it was initially approved. Then, after the Ohio Ballot Board unanimously approved the measure in October 2023, organizers were forced to resubmit the petition because of a typographical error in a single date.
“This is a great day for Ohio and Ohio democracy,” Miller said, “as residents across the state came together to ensure they voted this fall and finally got redistricting done.”
The effort comes after multiple failures by existing bodies to produce constitutional maps. During the drawn-out process of redrawing district boundaries to take into account the results of the 2020 census, court challenges have led to the dismissal of two congressional maps and five sets of state legislative maps as unconstitutional and irregular.
A month after the ballot initiative was announced, the bipartisan Ohio Redistricting Commission unanimously approved a new statehouse map that, while minority Democrats conceded to a “better, fairer” map, still gave the state’s ruling Republican Party a strong political advantage.
That same September, Republican-favorable congressional districts were also put into place after the Ohio Supreme Court dismissed a series of lawsuits urged by voting rights groups, who argued that continuing to challenge Republican-drawn districts would create confusion that would not benefit Ohio voters.
