Let’s favor voters

By Jim Slagle

Special to The Vindicator

Can you draw a better map than the politicians in Columbus?

Politicians are in the process of creating new congressional and state legislative districts. The districts they draw in upcoming weeks will largely determine who will make our laws for the next decade.

Historically, following the census, the political party in favor has gone in the backroom to draw new districts designed to give their party the greatest possible advantage. And they have been very successful. In 18 of the last 20 elections, the political party that elected the most state representatives was the party that had drawn the lines creating the districts.

How do they do this? By cracking and packing. Where the opposition party has a majority of the voters, they will crack that majority apart by splitting them into separate districts. Where cracking is not possible, they will pack overwhelming numbers of the voters from the opposing party into a single district, so that they can’t influence elections in other districts.

Mahoning County

The current congressional districts split Mahoning County. Youngstown is joined with parts of Trumbull, Portage, and Summit Counties to form the 17th District. The southern and western portions of the county were placed in the 6th District, which stretches 280 miles along the Ohio River to Lucasville.

We literally have politicians picking their voters, instead of voters choosing their politicians. Instead of elections being decided by the voters on election day, the outcome is decided by the politicians years before the election.

They have set up most of Ohio’s legislative districts so that only one political party can realistically win. As a result, the politicians don’t need to listen to us because they know they will be re-elected regardless of whether they represent our interests.

We think there is a better way. Instead of favoring the politicians, how about creating districts which favor the voters?

Led by the League of Women Voters of Ohio, Ohio Citizen Action, and the Midwest Democracy Network, 25 Ohio organizations have banded together to seek fair, accountable, and nonpartisan redistricting — and we are providing the tools for you to make this happen.

Last week, a competition was launched which gives private citizens access to the same census and election data used by the politicians to draw congressional and legislative maps. These maps will be scored by objective nonpartisan criteria which measure the degree to which maps create districts which preserve county and municipal boundaries, are compact, and are politically balanced.

Prize money

In order to promote quality competition, prize money will be awarded to those who draw high scoring maps. More importantly, the winning maps will be submitted to the Ohio Legislature and Apportionment Board. We will challenge them to adopt one of the nonpartisan maps generated through the competition, rather than a politically biased map.

The wonders of modern computer technology now allow public participation in a way that was never before possible.

All you need to participate is a computer and access to the internet. Log on to our website at www.drawthelineohio.org and start drawing. And then join us in demanding that the politicians consider maps generated through the competition.

State legislative maps will by due by Aug. 21. Congressional maps will be due by Sept. 11.

Can you draw a better map? We think so, too.

Slagle is manager of the Ohio Campaign for Accountable Redistricting.