Ohio citizens deserve fair representation.

The Problem 

Gerrymandering is when electoral districts are drawn by incumbent politicians to maintain their power, with the intention of influencing elections to their advantage.

The main goal of gerrymandering is for the political party in power to maintain their power by rigging districts in their favor.

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How this hurts us

Democracy works when citizens choose their representatives, but Gerrymandering takes power from the people and lets representatives choose their voters.

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.

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.

You can help

The Citizens Not Politicians campaign is collecting signatures across the state. The group must collect 413,487 valid Ohio voter signatures from at least 44 counties. The required number of valid signatures need to be submitted by July 3, 2024 to qualify for the November 2024 general election.

Please watch for Circulators canvassing with petitions to get the signatures required to get the amendment on the ballot.

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Organizers  

Fair Districts Ohio is a coalition of grassroots organizations committed to fairer state legislative and congressional maps. They are a non-partisan team of voting rights experts and organizations working to create a better and more equitable representational democracy led by these organizations Common Cause Ohio, League of Women Voters of Ohio, Ohio A Philip-Randolph Institute, Ohio Council of Churches, Ohio Voter Rights Coalition and other good government organizations.

About the AMENDMENT

The ballot amendment proposal for 2024 that has been in limbo after two different rejections from the Attorney General’s Office has now been certified to go forward after its third attempt.

Attorney General Dave Yost on Monday certified the petition language for an amendment that would create an “Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission” and amend the constitutional clauses that pertain to redistricting, confirming that the submitted summary was “a fair and truthful statement of the proposed constitutional amendment.”

The amendment proposal creates a 15-member redistricting commission including Republican, Democratic, and independent Ohio citizen commissioners, along with keeping “former politicians, political party officials and lobbyists” from sitting on the commission, according to the amendment language.

The group that created the proposal, Citizens Not Politicians, seeks to keep the commission in an “open and independent process” while creating “fair and impartial districts by making it unconstitutional to draw voting districts that discriminate against or favor any political party or individual politician.”

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The Citizens Not Politicians Amendment:

Is a citizen initiative to end gerrymandering. It bans lobbyists and politicians from the redistricting process and instead establishes the Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission, empowering citizens to draw fair districts using an open and transparent process.

The Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission will be responsible for adopting a redistricting plan for the Ohio General Assembly and new districts for the United States House of Representatives.

Seven states now have independent citizen commissions: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Montana, and Washington.

The amendment includes a redraw process in 2025 to replace the current Congressional and Statehouse maps. This means new maps for the 2026 elections and again be drawn after the new 2031 census.