When Ohioans Voted, Twice, and It Did Not Matter

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Ohio’s approach to drawing voting maps is broken, and repairing it must be a priority for us.

Ohioans voted twice, in 2015 and 2018, to take steps to end gerrymandering in our state. Both constitutional amendments passed by wide margins.

And now, several years later, our districts are drawn to favor one party more heavily than before.

We are presenting this history because we cannot fix our system unless everyone understands clearly how we arrived where we are. Here is what happened, in four acts, and the five lessons we take from it.

Act One: We voted, and passed two Ohio constitutional amendments by wide margins

In 2015, Ohio voters amended the state constitution to curb partisan gerrymandering in state legislative districts. It passed with 71% of the vote.

In 2018, voters extended the same protections to U.S. congressional districts. That one passed with nearly 75% agreement.

Seven in ten Ohioans, and then three in four, voiced agreement with measures to moderate and reduce the impact of gerrymandering — in a state that splits roughly 55–45 Republican and Democrat in statewide elections. Both initiatives were put on the ballot by the Ohio General Assembly.

The amendments created the Ohio Redistricting Commission and — this is the part that mattered — required that the share of districts favoring each party correspond closely to how Ohioans actually vote. Win 55% of the vote, get about 55% of the seats.

The commission has seven members: the Governor, the Secretary of State, the Auditor, and four legislative appointees, two from each party.

Notice that every person on it is an elected official whose own party’s fortunes depend on the maps they draw.

Act Two: Maps were ruled unconstitutional seven times, and used anyway

Between 2021 and 2022, the commission produced map after map. The Ohio Supreme Court struck down five sets of state legislative maps and two congressional maps — seven in total — for unduly favoring one party in violation of the constitution voters had just written.

Every one of those rulings was 4–3. The deciding vote each time came from Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, a Republican.

After the commission readopted a map the court had already rejected, O’Connor wrote that the commission’s action was a stunning rebuke of the rule of law.

Then came the part that should trouble anyone who cares about how this country works. With the election approaching, a federal court stepped in and imposed one of the maps the Ohio Supreme Court had already declared unconstitutional. The 2022 elections were held on districts that judges had ruled unlawful.

The results: Republicans won a supermajority of state seats — about 68% of Ohio House seats and 79% of Ohio Senate seats — and 68% of the U.S. congressional delegation, in a state averaging roughly 55% Republican voters in a general election.

Nobody paid a price. No fine, no penalty, no consequence for any commission official involved. The commission simply ran out the clock, and running out the clock worked.

O’Connor’s own verdict, later: looking at who populated the commission, it was doomed to fail.

Act Three: Voters tried again, and lost

To address the shortcomings of the 2015 and 2018 amendments, a citizen-led coalition put a new amendment on the ballot in 2024. It would have replaced the politician-run commission with a fifteen-member citizens’ commission, barring current and former politicians, party officials, lobbyists, and large donors from serving.

It was defeated, 53.7% to 46.3%.

The failure of this 2024 initiative was probably not a matter of citizen support. Many observers instead attribute the result to ballot language that was difficult to read and understand — voters simply did not understand clearly what a yes or no vote authorized. Any future attempt must be written so that a reasonable person understands it the first time.

Act Four: The deal, and the check that got traded away

Ohio was legally required to redraw its congressional map before the 2026 elections, because the 2022 map had passed without bipartisan support and therefore expired early.

On October 31, 2025, the Ohio Redistricting Commission approved a new congressional map unanimously. It runs through 2031. It gives Republicans the advantage in 12 of Ohio’s 15 seats, up from 10 — about 80% of the seats in a state that votes roughly 55–45.

Unanimously. Including the Democratic members.

Here is why, and it is the most important paragraph in this essay.

Under Ohio’s rules, a map passed by the legislature can be challenged by citizen referendum. A map passed by the commission cannot. The legislature’s Republican supermajority was positioned to pass a 13–2 map in November. The commission’s Democrats took 12–3 instead.

The Secretary of State said plainly that avoiding a referendum fight was one of his two objectives going in.

So the trade was this: an incrementally less lopsided map, in exchange for the public’s right to vote on it. Both parties signed that deal. The citizen check that Ohioans had used in 2015 and 2018 was bargained away at the table.

This is not a story about one party

It might be easy to read the story above as an argument against Republicans. It is not. In Ohio, Republicans hold the gavel. In Illinois and Maryland, Democrats hold the gavel, and they have drawn gerrymandered maps every bit as lopsided in their own favor.

The problem is not which party is drawing the districts. The problem is that the people drawing the districts are the people running in them.

Any reform that fixes this for one party and not the other is not a reform. It is a turn.

What we have learned about conducting citizen initiatives

Five lessons, and every one of them applies to ending gerrymandering as well as to any other reform we might tackle.

  • Winning the vote is not winning the change. Passing an amendment is the beginning of the fight, not the end of it. Ohio’s reformers won overwhelmingly in 2015 and 2018 and then lost the decade.
  • A rule with no penalty is a suggestion. The 2015 and 2018 amendments said what the maps had to look like. They did not say what happens to officials who ignore that. Nothing happened, so ignoring it worked.
  • Never let the referees be the players. A commission of officeholders drawing their own districts was, in a former Chief Justice’s words, doomed from the start.
  • Citizen checks can be traded away. The referendum right did not lose a vote. It was negotiated off the table in a closed-door deal that both parties approved.
  • Write it so a voter can read it once. The 2024 measure asked Ohioans to absorb a complicated structure in a voting booth. That is not the voters’ failing. It is a drafting requirement for next time.

None of this is a reason to quit. The next citizen-initiated amendment can begin as soon as 2027, and every one of the five lessons above is fixable by people who know them going in.

Sources and methodology
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