The Ohio Supreme Court Just Greenlit an Egregious “Fraud Upon the Voters”

ultranaut@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 699 points – The Ohio Supreme Court Just Greenlit an Egregious “Fraud Upon the Voters”
slate.com

In November, Ohio residents will have an opportunity to vote on Issue 1, a constitutional amendment that would finally abolish the state’s extreme partisan gerrymandering. Voters will not, however, be informed of this fact on the ballot. Instead, the Ohio Supreme Court’s Republican majority ruled Monday that the amendment will be described in egregiously misleading terms on the ballot itself, with ultra-biased language designed to turn citizens against it. Incredibly, a proposal that would end gerrymandering will be framed as a proposal to require gerrymandering, a patently false representation of its intent and effect. The court’s 4–3 decision marks yet another effort to subvert democracy in Ohio by Republicans who fear that the citizenry—when given a voice on the matter—might dare to loosen their stranglehold on power.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/09/ohio-supreme-court-voter-fraud-gop.html

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I don't think the article included it and it's a little difficult to find the phrasing.

I found a sample ballot

https://www.boe.ohio.gov/clark/c/upload/ELEC_BallotProofs.pdf

The phrasing there is

To create an appointed redistricting commission not elected by or subject to removal by the voters of the state

However a vote of "Yes" would establish a non-partisan (or, IMO more accurately, a mixed partisan) committee of 15 (5R, 5D, 5 other) where a majority of the committee must approve the redistricting.

The extended description starts with this

  1. Repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering approved by nearly three-quarters of Ohio electors participating in the statewide elections of 2015 and 2018, and eliminate the longstanding ability of Ohio citizens to hold their representatives accountable for establishing fair state legislative and congressional districts.

Technically all of this is correct but I can absolutely see how it's misleading voters.

Full disclosure, I'm not a lawyer or political scientist and I do not live in Ohio.

As an ohioian, the current system isn't enabling some nobel pursuit of holding people accountable. It's blatantly "our team draws the lines, in a way that benefits our team, who can draw the lines next time, benefitting our team again"

And even after the R weighted supreme court rules "the lines are biased - throw out the map", they still find a way to use the map anyway. Yeah. Calling it a "repeal of gerrymander protection" is a joke and a half.

The current maps are ‘illegal’. If you remember they were ordered to redraw the districts but have been using the maps from 10 or 12 years ago. There was no agreement on new ones and were ordered to keep redrawing but there was no teeth behind the order. There was a good NPR story on it last year.

They've updated the maps, my personal district changed the last couple years. But the maps they are using are still the ones the court explicitly ruled unconstitutional, I think from 2022. Brennan center has a nice timeline.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/timeline-ohios-gerrymandered-maps-how-ohio-politicians-defied-court

That timeline is just insane to me. They don’t apply honest maps and we still have to vote.

We don't have sample ballots yet, but this matches our local reporting:

Now LaRose is abusing his position on the Ohio Ballot Board to paint Issue 1 in a comically negative light. The Ohio Constitution bars ballot language that would “mislead, deceive, or defraud the voters.” Yet the board’s description of the amendment states that it would create “a new taxpayer-funded commission of appointees required to gerrymander the boundaries of state legislative and congressional districts” to produce “partisan outcomes” (emphasis added). It also declares that the amendment would “repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering approved by nearly three-quarters of Ohio electors participating in the statewide elections of 2015 and 2018,” a gratuitous reference to the failed reforms of the previous decade.

This is grossly misleading of what we approved in the past.

Thank you for sharing this clear and succinct comment. Looked through the article and didn't see it formated so clearly.

The entire ballot measure is riddled with lies and doublespeak. This is just one example, and that's what makes it hard to describe the problem in clear and succinct language. Vinny Gambini's opening statement comes to mind.

Wont the 5 others just be libertarians that always end up voting in lockstep with Republicans?

Not necessarily. Half of Americans are registered unaffiliated. I imagine most of those aren't libertarians. I'm registered unaffiliated because I'm a socialist.

I'm registered unaffiliated because I'm an anarchist. Still voting though.