Apportionment
Gerrymandering
By Mark D. Harris
June 13, 2025
Gerrymandering has been a long-lived issue for the United States and Ohio alike. With origins that stemmed from the earliest days of our electoral process to the fights of today, gerrymandering has been a consistent issue due to the nature of partisan politics in the United States and the way we create our electoral districts.
In Ohio, fights in this decade have resulted in changes to the state constitution but have not yet quashed gerrymandering. The maps created for the 2024 election cycle contained perhaps one of the most gerrymandered maps seen in the nation. With the Statehouse district map cutting the city of Athens, Ohio, out of a district containing a portion of Athens township, as well as the majority of Athens County, making for easy wins for Republican representatives who would have otherwise struggled to overcome the Democratic stronghold of Athens.
Though the individual fights may be partisan, the issue cuts both ways, as whichever party holds the power to gerrymander the maps does so for their own benefit across the nation. This is why the effort to change things must be non-partisan and rely on an independent body to create maps as well as to ensure those independently drawn maps are adopted.
Keep Cool and Think It Out
The Editors
Citizens Digest Staff
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- Mike Gonzalez, Technical Editor, Writer
- Donald Wiggins, Chief Legal and Organizational Officer
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- Mark Harris, Operations Manager
- Elizabeth Frost, Circulation and Volunteer Manager
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