Hicks-Hudson Condemns Ballot Board Response to Court Decision

Today, state senator Paula Hicks-Hudson (D-Toledo) responded to the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision and changes made by the Ohio Ballot Board to the misleading, deceptive, and argumentative Republican ballot language for Issue 1, more commonly known as the “Citizens Not Politicians” redistricting constitutional amendment.

“Words matter and the ballot language is obviously written to deceive Ohio’s voters and to misconstrue a plainly anti-gerrymandering ballot initiative as something sinister and anti-democratic,” said Hicks-Hudson. “The entire thing should be re-written, not just adjusted around the margins as the Court’s partisan majority believes.” 

“The Constitution explicitly bars this kind of willfully misleading language from appearing in front of voters. I remain confident that the people of Ohio will not fall for these desperate attacks on a good government reform to end the partisan gerrymandering. that was so recently practiced and approved – by the very people involved in the board’s unconstitutional ballot language and this Court decision.”

The dysfunction of the last two redistricting cycles disenfranchised at least 38,000 voters in Lucas County. For the last two elections for state senator, they have not been able to vote for their state senate candidate because of political manipulation of district lines. When this was discussed during today’s Ballot Board meeting, state Senator Theresa Gavarone (R-Bowling Green) acknowledged that the Republican politician-drawn maps did not consider other facts necessary to draw fair maps.