Analysis finds partisan map-making advantage in Ohio
Associated Press
COLUMBUS
A political map-making process controlled by Ohio Republicans resulted in the party winning nearly two more U.S. House seats and five more Ohio House seats in the last election than would have been expected in neutral circumstances, an Associated Press analysis has found.
The AP used a mathematical formula to determine the effects of gerrymandering, in which the party in power alters voting districts to its advantage, in federal and state legislative races across the country.
The analysis placed Ohio’s “efficiency gap” near the top for both state and federal legislative races.
The analysis found Republicans won 56 percent of the votes in Ohio House races yet 66 percent of the seats. Republican candidates for Ohio’s U.S. House seats won 58 percent of the votes but 75 percent of the state’s 16 congressional seats.
Ohio has seen growing bipartisan concern about how its voting districts are drawn.
After a decade of false starts, Ohioans voted overwhelmingly in 2015 to approve new rules for drawing state legislative districts that aimed to reduce gerrymandering.
The resulting new apportionment system emerged from an historic compromise between Republican and Democratic lawmakers that gives the minority party a powerful say on any new 10-year map designating Ohio’s 99 House and 33 Senate districts.
Backers are working now to get a similar proposal overhauling Ohio’s congressional map-making system on the statewide ballot.
The idea of replacing a process that gives the state Legislature power to approve the maps drawn once every 10 years has support from Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican.
Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who saw his Cleveland district eliminated after the 2010 Census and his home drawn into that of a fellow Democrat, said there’s “no question” districts are unfair – though he holds both parties culpable.