The effort to end gerrymandering had a voice in Bowling Green on Monday.
The Citizens Not Politicians coalition met at the senior center to share information about its efforts to empower Ohio citizens to draw fair and impartial legislative and congressional districts through an open an independent process.
Citizens Not Politicians is a coalition of people and organizations seeking to end gerrymandering in Ohio by removing politicians from the redistricting process.
States and local governments once every 10 years draw new voting district boundaries known as redistricting. Gerrymandering occurs when those boundaries are drawn with the intention of influencing who gets elected.
“Issue 1 is important because fairness is important. I grew up in California, which historically has been gerrymandered by Democrats. When I lived in California more than 30 years ago, I voted to stop the gerrymandering that the Democrats were doing,” said Debbie Dalke, League of Women Voters of Ohio member. “Fairness is an important part of the American way. We want a fair fight. If we have a fair fight, then we have a chance that some of the ideas we want can be implemented. What this amendment will do is prevent one party from having a super majority here in Ohio. When a party has a super majority, it means that they don’t have to listen to other parties and compromise. That’s where we get these extreme policies that have been implemented that citizens don’t want.”
Since last fall, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents across the state of Ohio have been collecting signatures to put the Issue 1 amendment on the November 2024 ballot. The coalition exceeded their goal of 413,487 signatures, receiving over 535,000 signatures.
“I was one of the people who took the lead in collecting signatures here in Wood County. I am also one of the people who organizes different events for people to go to,” Dalke said. “We’ll go to different events to hand out the literature to make sure that people understand what this amendment is about. It is important to get fair maps here.”
On the ballot, Issue 1 will:
- Empower Ohio citizens to draw fair and impartial voting districts in an open and transparent process.
- Ban politicians and lobbyists, who have turned Ohio into one of the 10 most gerrymandered states in the country, from controlling the process.
- Make it illegal to manipulate voting districts in secret backroom deals designed to protect powerful incumbent politicians and favor political parties.
- End a broken system under which Ohio courts have ruled seven times that politician crafted voting maps are unconstitutional.
Currently, the process of redistricting is controlled by politicians who are capable of drawing districts that can ensure their own re-election.
“Ohio is one of the most gerrymandered states in the country. When politicians can rig maps for their own benefit, they don’t have to listen to the voters,” said Jen Miller, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio. “Instead, they play to party extremes. They are not as worried about serving the people of Ohio because they know they will get re-elected repeatedly.”
The Citizens Not Politicians coalition has tried to spread the word in Wood County by collecting signatures and training volunteers.
“We had countless volunteers in Wood County collecting signatures to get on the ballot. We have a speaker’s bureau of volunteers who are trained to explain the issue and can speak to community groups,” Miller said. “We’ll be doing a ton of other events like this evening to get the word out. We qualified in more than the 44 counties.”
The coalition has fought both Democrats and Republicans in the process.
“This is particularly important to the League of Women Voters because we have been fighting partisan gerrymandering. We fought both Democrats and Republicans who can’t resist the temptation to gerrymander,” Miller said. “It’s important that all of us end up for the people of Ohio. This is about restoring power to where it belongs, with the people of Ohio.”
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