CLEVELAND, Ohio – A prominent backer of a redistricting reform amendment Ohio voters will consider this fall says in a new report that Ohio’s existing system has divided people and marginalized communities.

The League of Women Voters of Ohio on Tuesday released a report titled “Ohio’s Congressional Districts: Disparities, Divisions, & Disadvantages,” examining the impact of gerrymandering in Ohio. It argues that manipulated district boundaries have created significant political divisions and disadvantages, particularly for marginalized communities, by diluting their voting power.

In the upcoming election Nov. 5, voters will decide on Issue 1– a redistricting proposal that would remove politicians from the process in favor of a citizen commission. Issue 1 would overhaul how Ohio draws congressional and legislative districts every 10 years. The League of Women Voters is part of the coalition advocating for the reform after the Ohio Redistricting Commission repeatedly tried to adopt unconstitutional maps.

“Ohioans have suffered under the corrupt, undemocratic process of gerrymandering for decades in which politicians manipulate voting district lines to reduce competition,” the report from the League of Women Voters said.

With early voting starting Tuesday, Ohioans can now cast their ballot on Issue 1.

In the report, University of Cincinnati political science professor David Niven, a former aide to Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, and former common pleas court Judge Jim Slagle showed what they described as the practical impacts of gerrymandering and “what communities of interest do and do not look like.”

For example, district lines in Massillon, just west of Canton, forced homes on Carlyle Street in the 13th congressional district to be surrounded by homes in another district, splitting up the neighborhood. The report also references odd district shapes — describing an “angry elephant” in the 1st congressional district — reminiscent of Ohio’s former “snake on the lake” and “duck” districts. Existing lines also separates a large, cohesive population of African-American constituents into two separate districts, per the report.

Statewide, 67 school districts are divided into different congressional districts as well. This includes 13 school districts that are so small that they only have two buildings, the report says.

Community needs also get split by the current system, per the report. For example, a county with poor broadband access is unlikely to see its representative address that problem if it isn’t pervasive across the entire district.

“If the needs of you or your community are only shared by few others in the district in which you live, there is little likelihood that these needs and interests will be effectively represented in Congress or the Statehouse,” the report said.

Matt Dole, spokesman for Ohio Works, the main anti-Issue 1 group, disparaged the report, calling the League of Women Voters “a hyper-partisan organization masquerading as a fair and reasonable resource for voters.”

“Don’t be fooled. They endorse and openly support a ‘yes’ vote on issue one, and their materials are a means to that end. The academic they cite in their screed was a speechwriter for two Democratic governors and shares left-leaning partisan views on social media,” Dole said in a statement. “Voters should know what the LWV won’t tell them: issue one will enshrine gerrymandering in the Ohio Constitution because people like the League want to draw maps to achieve a pre-determined purpose.”

What would the redistricting amendment do?

The amendment, if approved by a majority of Ohio voters, would get rid of Ohio’s current redistricting processes for redrawing congressional and legislative district boundaries every 10 years, following the latest U.S. Census.

Under Ohio’s current redistricting process, approved by voters via statewide votes in 2015 and 2018, state legislative districts are redrawn by the seven-member Ohio Redistricting Commission, made up of certain statewide officials and state legislators from both major parties.

The state’s congressional districts are redrawn by the Ohio General Assembly, though the job then falls to the Ohio Redistricting Commission, then back to the legislature, if there’s an extended impasse.

If Issue 1 passes, both congressional and legislative district lines would be determined by the Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission, a newly created, 15-member panel divided evenly among Republicans, Democrats and independents.

The already-existing Ohio Ballot Board would choose a bipartisan panel of four retired judges, who in turn would pick a pool of finalists. Six members of the new redistricting commission would be chosen at random from that pool of finalists, and those six would then choose the other nine commissioners from the remaining finalists.

Elected officials, party operative, and lobbyists — as well as members of their immediate family — would be banned from serving on the new commission.

If Issue 1 passes, the new commission would be put in place next year to pass new maps in time for the 2026 midterm election.

New redistricting commission members would then be chosen every 10 years, starting in 2031.

The proposed redistricting commission would then have to draw congressional and legislative districts that favor either Democrats or Republicans, based on the average percentage of the vote each respective party’s statewide candidates received in recent elections. In other words, if recent Republican statewide candidates got 55% of the vote, on average, 55% of new congressional and legislative districts would have to have more Republicans than Democrats in them.

The commission would also have to consider other factors as well, including giving racial, ethnic and language minorities a chance to elect their candidates of choice and preserving communities of interest.

Supporters of Issue 1 say Ohio’s current redistricting system is broken. While recent Republican statewide candidates have won about 56%, the GOP currently controls 10 of Ohio’s 15 congressional seats, as well as more than two-thirds of seats in both the Ohio House and the Ohio Senate — the largest supermajorities either major party has held since the state legislature moved to single-member districts in the 1960s.

Critics of Issue 1, who include most Republican state-level elected officials in the state and a handful of Democratic ex-lawmakers, say that the proposal would actually make Ohio’s political maps more gerrymandered and break up communities (particularly those with large numbers of racial minorities) in order to help Democrats increase their power.

Read the original piece here.