UNDERSTANDING REDISTRICTING
AN INTRODUCTION TO REDISTRICTING
The First Step to Fair Maps: The 2020 Census
What’s the Census? The Census happens every ten years, in the year ending in zero. The Census aims to count every person who lives in the United States. It’s mandated by the US Constitution. How is Census data used? To help distribute more than $1 trillion in federal funding and to determine how many US Congress members each state gets. What happens after the Census is done? After the Census, states redraw their congressional, state legislative, and other district lines to ensure equal, proportional representation. That process is called redistricting.
Redistricting ≠ Gerrymandering
Gerrymandering is a form of cheating. It lets a political party or other group exaggerate their power by taking more seats in government than they deserve. Politicians gerrymander during the redistricting process by manipulating district lines to help their party win elections.
Want more information? Check out the chart below!
How Gerrymandering Works
Let's say you have a state with 5 district seats. 60% of the residents are in the blue party and 40% of the residents are in the red party. If you were to draw perfectly representative districts, the blue party would hold 60% of the seats and the red party would hold just 40% of the seats. The government would accurately represent the people in the state.
But if map drawers gerrymander during the redistricting process, you could wind up with one party holding way more power than they deserve.
Example: the district lines in the middle map would give the blue party all 5 seats and leave the red party with none. Even though the red party won 40% of the vote, they got 0% of the seats because of how the lines were gerrymandered – that’s not a fair map!
The map on right shows shows how the red party could gerrymander their way to the majority of seats even though they only won 40% of the vote.
A fair map is one that is both representative of a state’s communities and also lets voters hold politicians accountable.
Redistricting in Ohio
In 2015 and 2018, Ohioans overwhelmingly voted for two different reform measures that changed how we will go through our redistricting process. The goal was to create a fair process that gives Republicans and Democrats a say in how district lines are drawn.
LEARN ABOUT HOW OHIO’S NEW REDISTRICTING PROCESS WORKS
Who Runs the Maps?
Redistricting Commission
A new seven-member Redistricting Commission draws state legislative maps. Commission members include the Ohio Governor, Auditor, Secretary of State, and one nominee each from the four legislative leaders.
Ohio Supreme
Court
The Ohio Supreme Court has original jurisdiction (or first review) for all future legal challenges to state legislative and congressional maps
Ohio General
Assembly
The Ohio General Assembly and (if needed) the Redistricting Commission draw the congressional maps
Criteria for State Legislative and Congressional Maps
General Criteria
• Bipartisan support needed for any 10-year map
Rules to Curb Community Splits
• Use existing boundaries for counties, townships, cities to help create new district lines to help keep communities together
• Where possible, districts should avoid splitting apart counties
• Congressional rules will heavily decrease how many county splits there are • State House districts shouldn’t be drawn to split apart counties more than once, if possible
Rules Against Partisan Gerrymandering
• For state legislative maps, no partisan gerrymandering! For congressional maps, no partisan gerrymandering for 4-year maps
• State legislative maps must have representational fairness based on the preferences of Ohio’s voters – that means the seat share for Republicans and Democrats should look a lot more like the vote share they get at the ballot box
