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OHIOANS
DESERVE
FAIR
REPRESENTATION
It's time to end gerrymandering in Ohio. For good.
THE PROBLEM: GERRYMANDERING
GERRYMANDERING: is when electoral districts are drawn by incumbent politicians to maintain their power, with the intention of influencing elections to their advantage.
MAIN GOAL OF GERRYMANDERING: For the political party in power to maintain their power by rigging districts in their favor.
HOW RIGGED DISTRICTS HURT OUR
DEMOCRACY
Democracy works when citizens choose their representatives, but gerrymandering takes power from the people and lets representatives choose their voters.
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Gerrymandering is a way to rig political outcomes by creating districts that always vote for the same political party.
It allows the party in charge to stay in charge by weakening the power of the opposing party, and making individual voters less impactful.
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The more this happens, the more untouchable legislators become.
Gerrymandering distorts democracy, leading to political outcomes
and policy decisions that aren’t what the majority of voters actually want.
HOW WE FIX THIS
Ohioans overwhelmingly support fair districting. We've passed two constitutional amendments in 2015 and 2018 to reform electoral map making, but Ohio politicians and lobbyists keep finding ways to manipulate the laws in their favor.
The solution? Get politicians out of the process.
In 2023 and 2024, thousands of volunteers worked tirelessly to gather more than 730,000 signatures to get the Citizens Not Politicians citizen initiative onto the ballot, which gave Ohio voters the chance to pass a constitutional amendment that would give citizens the power. The Citizens Not Politicians amendment was an independent redistricting commission designed to put people first, not politicians' self-interest.
Statement from Retired Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor on November 5, 2024:
Though we didn’t get the outcome we worked for, we have laid a powerful foundation. We will continue to push for an Ohio where every vote truly counts and where transparency and fairness guide our electoral process.
In analyzing the vote tonight, it is clear that the millions of Ohioans who voted yes want to end gerrymandering. And it is also clear that those who voted no thought that they were voting to end gerrymandering.
WHO SUPPORTED YES ON ISSUE 1?
WHO WE ARE
Fair Districts Ohio is a coalition of grassroots organizations committed to fairer state legislative and congressional maps. We are a non-partisan team of voting rights experts and organizations working to create a better and more equitable representational democracy. The coalition is led by Common Cause Ohio, ACLU Ohio, and the League of Women Voters of Ohio, and joined by the Ohio A. Philip Randolph Institute, the Ohio Council of Churches, the Ohio Voter Rights Coalition, and other good government organizations.
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