Ohio’s fall redistricting issue sparked a fight over one word. So what is ‘gerrymandering,’ anyway?

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — All the political wrangling over Ohio’s Issue 1, a statewide ballot issue aimed at changing the way the state draws its political maps, has landed voters in a fix. While they are hearing from the campaign behind the constitutional amendment that it would prevent gerrymandering, the language they’ll see on ballots says gerrymandering would be required.

It’s a war over one word — “gerrymander” — and rarely have so many dictionaries been called into action during an Ohio ballot campaign.

While there are certain neutral words to describe political mapmaking — “redistricting” or “reapportionment,” for example — the word “gerrymander” is the one typically employed to suggest that string-pulling aimed at securing an unfair political advantage is afoot.

How the Republican-controlled Ohio Ballot Board turned the tables on Citizens Not Politicians, a bipartisan and well-funded campaign pushing to replace Ohio’s troubled redistricting system with an independent commission, on use of the word requires some unpacking.

Here’s a look at what happened:

What is the history behind Issue 1?

Issue 1 emerged after courts declared seven different versions of the congressional and legislative maps Ohio created to reflect population changes from the 2020 Census unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Republicans.

<bsp-list-loadmore data-module="" class=«PageListStandardB» data-gtm-region=«RELATED COVERAGE» data-gtm-topic=«No Value» data-hide-dates=«true» data-show-loadmore=«true»