This November, Ohio voters will have to decide if there will be a change or not to the state's political map-making process. Governor Mike DeWine says he cannot support the ballot initiative that gets rid of the Ohio Redistricting Commission, which is made up of himself and other politicians, and if passed would be replaced by a 15-member citizens' panel. DeWine, Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted, and other opponents of the measure say this issue could encourage gerrymandering. 

Ohioans will have to decide if they want to change who draws the political district maps or not. The statewide ballot item put on by "Citizens Not Politicians" is asking voters to approve the creation of a citizen-led board to draw the boundaries for the Ohio House and Senate and the U.S. congressional districts over the current system of the Ohio Redistricting Commission, which is made up of state-elected officials.

The Ohio Secretary of State has told the Board of Elections in Ohio to get ready for an August 2nd primary for State House and Senate seats us…

May 3rd is the first of two primaries that Ohio will be having this year.  Since the Ohio Redistricting Commission had to draw maps for the new state House and Senate districts four times, and because they kept getting rejected by the Ohio Supreme Court for being unconstitutional, a separate primary election will have to be had for those races and the state central committee positions.  Secretary of State Frank LaRose is looking at a possible August 2nd date for that election.

Senate President Matt Huffman explains, “I think the issue as it relates to the redistricting commission re there 4votes for any map that the Ohio Supreme Court in it’s current make-up will rule constitutional. And I don’t know if that’s, frankly if that’s possible to happen.”

A divided Ohio Supreme Court has issued an extraordinary fourth rebuke of the state's Republican-controlled mapmaking panel for unconstitutionally gerrymandering Statehouse maps to benefit their party. In a 4-3 ruling, the court ordered the embattled and defiant Ohio Redistricting Commission to reconvene and draw a constitutionally compliant plan by May 6.

The Ohio Supreme Court will be reviewing the 4th set of maps for new state legislative districts. The Ohio Redistricting Commission passed the 4th version with a 4 to 3 vote on Monday.   The likelihood of the court approving those maps is uncertain after the state's political mapmaking body created them from a previously rejected set of maps.   With approving this set of maps, the commission set aside the efforts of two independent mapmakers, whom they paid $450 dollars an hour for four days work.  Most of their work could have been watched by the public, step-by-step online.  The two map makers were brought in to create the districts that reflect state voter preferences of 54% of the district leaning Republican and 46% Democratic. The three previous maps were rejected by the Ohio Supreme Court because they say there were more districts that were republican leaning.

Two independent map makers presented their proposed district maps they created to the Ohio Redistricting Commission Sunday afternoon. The map …

Ohio's powerful political mapmaking body has set a series of meetings for hammering out a constitutional compromise on boundaries for state le…