Ohio officials approve language saying anti-gerrymandering measure calls for the opposite

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio election officials have approved ballot language that will describe this fall’s Issue 1, a redistricting measure, as requiring gerrymandering when the proposal is intended to do the opposite.

The Republican-controlled Ohio Ballot Board approved the language Wednesday in a 3-2 party-line vote, two days after the Republican-led state Supreme Court voted 4-3 to correct various defects the justices found in what the board had already passed.

The high court ordered two of eight disputed sections of the ballot description to be rewritten while upholding the other six the issue’s backers had contested. The court’s three Democratic justices dissented.

Citizens Not Politicians, the group behind the Nov. 5 amendment, sued last month, asserting the language “may be the most biased, inaccurate, deceptive, and unconstitutional” the state has ever seen.

The bipartisan coalition’s proposal calls for replacing Ohio’s troubled political map-making system with a 15-member, citizen-led commission of Republicans, Democrats and independents. The proposal emerged after seven different versions of congressional and legislative maps created after the 2020 Census were declared unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Republicans.

State Sen. Paula Hicks-Hudson, D-Toledo, one of the two Democrats who sit on the ballot board, told reporters after it met that “this was done and it was created for the main purpose of hoodwinking voters.” Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who chairs the board, did not take questions from the press after the vote.

In Monday’s opinion, the high court’s majority noted that it can only invalidate language approved by the ballot board if it finds the wording would “mislead, deceive, or defraud the voters.” The majority found most of the language included in the approved summary and title didn’t do that but merely described the extensive amendment in detail.

The two sections that justices said were mischaracterized involve when a lawsuit would be able to be filed challenging the new commission’s redistricting plan and the ability of the public to provide input on the map-making process.

The exact language of the constitutional amendment will be posted at polling locations.