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

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — 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.

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