(soft music) - Hello and welcome to The Journal.

I'm Steve Kendall.

Ohioans will vote on Issue 1 this November and Issue 1 this time around talks about a different way to provide the mechanism by which we provide the panel that will decide how we redistrict in Ohio.

The issue is called Citizens Not Politicians.

Joining us to talk about that as well as just the election process and what people will kind of expect is Jen Miller of the League of Women Voters of Ohio.

And Jen, we'll get to Issue 1 in just a moment, but thank you for being here.

When we talk about redistricting, kind of just describe in general terms what that is.

And then of course, what we always hear attached to that in Ohio is gerrymandering, which probably happens in every state.

The terms are connected in direct way.

But, but talk about what redistricting is and what that means when people go in to look at Issue 1 in the broader sense.

- Great, so thank you so much for having me.

I'm so glad to be here.

Redistricting is when we are drawing the voting districts or those lines that define the districts for the State House and for Congress.

We typically do that after every election.

I mean, not after every election.

- Every census.

- Every census, right.

- Yep.

- Because, you know, new people are born and people pass away, people move and those lines grow old, if you will.

So we draw these every 10 years, typically.

And gerrymandering is when politicians use their power to really manipulate those lines.

They aren't looking to figure out how to keep communities together or define fair representation.

Instead, they're going house by house, figuring out or making assumptions about how individuals will vote.

And they're trying to rig the system so that they can win their elections over and over again.

- Ah, now, and one of the things that obviously Ohioans, and probably over time people don't remember these things, but in 2015 there was a constitutional amendment to address this.

In 2018, there was another constitutional amendment.

We thought we had it figured out.

When it came tied to draw them for the 2020 election, and of course, in 2022 for the congressional things, there was concern.

And of course several of the maps that were drawn by the board, current board that was responsible for doing that, Ohio's own Supreme Court said, no, those are unconstitutional.

But it all sort of ended up flowing through.

So here we are again.

And I joked with some people a few shows ago that redistricting Ohio was like an algae bloom on Erie.

It's going to happen every year, it seems, regardless of what we try to do, prevent it.

So talk about the fact that here we are now, we've got another initiative, another ballot issue for people to vote on, to address how we draw, the process by which the people that we select to draw those lines, and then the process to get them drawn.

Talk about Citizens Not Politicians for us.

Right, so I want to back up for a second 'cause you brought something up that I think is really important.

- Okay.

- Which is that 2015 and 2018, those reforms were actually, or that was packages were created by the general assembly.

- Right.

By the legislature, yeah.

- And they actually selected the Ohio Supreme Court as the authority for determining if maps were fair or not, or had met those constitutional requirements.

- Ah, - And unfortunately, the politicians who drew those maps refused to listen to the reforms that were in that package.

They refused to end partisan gerrymandering.

They continued to put their self-interest first, and then those were brought to the Ohio Supreme Court, which struck down our voting districts seven times.

And they refused to abide by those orders.

- To make the adjustments to make the court to be, so they basically defied their own law.

- Right.

- Yeah.

- And so this is when we recognize that we need to take politicians out of the equation because politicians have a self-interest.

- Sure.

- Politicians, lobbyists have a self-interest for rigging district lines in a way that insures that they and their friends are elected over and over again.

And that harms our democracy.

So a lot of individuals, including former Supreme Court Justice Maureen O'Connor, who was the chief, as well as many other Ohioans, came together to write a new proposal that bans politicians and lobbyists from being able to make the maps at all.

- Okay.

- And so that is really the primary piece is that now politicians, lobbyists, party leaders and their spouses, those who have kind of a perverted self interest.

- [Steve] A vested interest in the outcome.

- Yes, right.

- Aren't going to be sitting to, in a way, try to determine that outcome.

- Right, so a yes on Issue 1 means that you agree that we should ban politicians and lobbyists from making the maps.

- Okay.

- And now the other piece is, is that it would be five Republicans, five Democrats, five Independents.

That's incredibly positive because mapping here in Ohio has never given Independents a voice.

- Okay.

- And we haven't ever seen it have this party parody.

We don't want one party having an outsized role in creating those voting lines.

And given how many Ohioans consider themselves Independent, it's incredible to give Independents that voice as well.

- They haven't had a voice before.

- Sure.

- Yes, absolutely.

- Now, and one of the things that when we look at that panel, because currently it's elected officials, it's statewide elected officials, that sort of thing.

One of the arguments just to be devil's advocate is to say, well, if you don't like the way those districts have been done each time, vote differently at the elections, put different people in there.

But obviously there's a rolling situation there because the more you gerrymander the more you whatever, it makes it a farther off target to ever get to the point where you can say, well, let's elect different people.

It almost prevents you from doing that to a certain extent.

And as you said, the legislature drew up its own rules on this and made the Supreme Court the adjudication, the people who'd make the decision on whether or not the lines were correct and then chose to ignore when the court said, oh, those aren't correct.

And just said, well, so what kind of.

What do you say, and we can talk about one of the things that comes up about Citizens Not Politicians, is oh, this is way too complicated.

It's way too complex.

It's going to confuse people.

And there's a second question I'll answer, but what about that part?

So kind of describe what Citizens Not Politicians, what that structure would look like, and maybe compare it to what we currently have a little bit.

- So first off, what we currently have is a lack of accountability.

- Okay.

- So, elected officials in the State House and in Congress, if they win the primary, they're going to win the general election.

And so they're playing to party extremes and they win over and over again, even if they're not acting in the best interests of their constituents.

So we have no accountability.

In those four legislative seats, they all voted, Republican and Democrat, they all voted in the last mapping to keep their seats.

So that's not accountability.

- Yeah, on either side.

- Right, correct.

- We don't make this a partisan thing, but actually it is partisan.

It's not supposed to be, but it comes out that way.

- But what I'll say is this, Republicans and Democrats gerrymander.

- Yeah.

So when politicians have the ability to make the lines, they're going to make them to benefit themselves.

Both parties do it.

My organization has fought both parties in doing that, which is why we need to take politicians and lobbyists out of this process entirely.

- Okay, so we got to take a break and we come back and we will pick up on that 'cause obviously this new process is supposed to correct that issue.

So back in just a moment with Jen Miller, League of Women Voters, Ohio as we talk about Issue 1 and election activity in general.

Back in just a moment here on The Journal.

Thank you for staying with us around The Journal.

Our guest is Jen Miller of the League of Women in Voters of Ohio.

Jen, we left that last segment, you were in the process of starting to explain how Citizens Not Politicians, the Issue 1 that's going to be on the ballot November, would address the current problems that a lot of people feel we have with our current method of redistricting.

So pick it up where you left off.

And again, my apologies for interrupting you, but it just had to happen that way.

- That's great.

- Yeah.

- So this is a thoughtful and detailed proposal that really makes sure that we protect Ohioans from unfair districts from here out.

And again, it's no politicians, no lobbyists.

It's equal numbers of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.

And then it's a truly fair, open, and transparent process where Ohioans will truly be able to tell the commission how they'd like their representation to work.

- Okay.

- And then the commission is to listen to that feedback.

- Yeah, now how will those people, those five Democrats, the five Republicans, the five Independents, how will those be determined?

Someone has to say, oh, wait a minute, that's not really a Republican.

That's not really an independent.

How will that work so that people can be assured that it isn't?

'cause one of the arguments is this thing is not transparent.

It's less effective.

It's way too complex.

It's confusing.

It actually creates more problems with gerrymandering than it solves.

But so address some of those, what the other side is saying about why this isn't a good idea.

- Well, what we know is that politicians are going to continue to rig maps in their favor.

And so citizens on the other hand, their interest is really doing their best to draw fair maps.

And it's actually a lot easier to do redistricting when you're not trying to put your thumb on the scale.

- [Steve] Sure.

- And so it is incredibly transparent.

First and foremost, after we win, we will actually draw new maps next year for the 2026 election and there'll be an open search process.

So Ohioans from across the state should apply and they will be vetted.

So we'll make sure that in the last six years, they haven't been an elected official.

If they say they're a Republican, that their activities in terms of voting and donations and things like that have been for Republicans, Democrats, or if they're unaffiliated or with a third party.

So there's a vetting process to make sure that folks are what they say they are.

- Yeah, okay.

Because one of the arguments is that this will, you know who's the secretary of state, you know who the governor is, the people that are currently sitting on that panel, you know them, these are going to be people you don't know because they haven't been elected officials, they haven't been in the public eye the same way.

But as you said, that is a good thing because they're not in the system the way elected officials are or politicians.

Will the process, because I know, we talk about the ballot language, and that's another whole piece of this.

The ballot language has been written, at least from the perspective of people who are supporting Citizen Not Politicians, is that that ballot language actually misrepresents totally what the ballot issue is.

And actually turns it into something that says, because I believe the ballot language says something to the effect that this will actually make it easier to gerrymandering and creates gerrymandering where it doesn't exist and will be more unconstitutional than the current system.

So talk about the arguments that are being made from the other side about that.

- Yeah, so the ballot board writes the language that you see on your sample ballot on your ballot.

But that is not actually the amendment that would go into the Constitution.

And so their duty, according to the Constitution, is to write fair, unbiased language.

- Right.

- But instead, what they've done is write very untruthful language that should not have happened.

And so right now that's in the Ohio Supreme Court and we'll see where that goes.

But remember that the ballot board is made of politicians - [Steve] Yeah.

- And so they don't want to lose the power that we are trying to restore power to the citizens of Ohio and where it belongs.

And so they're doing everything they can to confuse voters, but trust and believe that groups like the League that have fought partisan gerrymandering, you know, here in Ohio, when Republicans and Democrats have done it, that folks from across the political spectrum, from Republican, Former Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, as well as lots of law scholars, many different individuals have written this proposal to protect Ohioans from the unfairness that we have seen in our legislative processes.

- And in a way, you know, when you look at it that way, in a way they're making your argument by the way they've manipulated the ballot language.

'Cause obviously you have elected officials, politicians who are looking at writing that ballot explanation in a way that misrepresents and allows them, as you said, to in their mind, retain the power.

They don't want this to go through because it could have the potential to maybe move some of them out of office.

And no elected official thinks that's ever a good idea, no matter what they're thinking.

When you talk about the response and the coalition, talk about some of the people that are involved and are involved in Citizens Not Politicians in terms of moving Issue 1 to the ballot and then being able to explain to voters what it is and what it is not 'cause obviously that's going to be part of the battle.

And then I have one other question about the fact that it's on a really intensely concentrated or very wide range of issues on the ballot that you're not state issues, but other things.

So talk about addressing those questions where people say, "Gee, this is so complex, so confusing."

And then talk about the people that are supporting Citizens Not Politicians.

- It's not actually complex, but it does include a lot of guardrails.

You want to look at all the places where one individual, or one group of people, or one party could have outsized control over redistricting.

- Okay.

- And that's what we don't want.

We want this to have to be where Republicans, Democrats, and Independents work together.

We want to make sure that no one can undo these fair voting districts as created through this transparent public process.

- Yeah, okay, alright.

And well we come back, 'cause we're coming to the end of the segment too, we can talk about the coalition that has come together.

You've talked about a little bit, some of the people, but obviously it does have a broad range of support across the, we will say the political spectrum.

Back in just a moment with Jen Miller, League of Women Voters of Ohio, talking about Issue 1 and going to vote in November.

Back in just a moment here on The Journal.

You're with us on The Journal.

Our guest is Jen Miller of the League of Women Voters of Ohio.

Jen, coalition that's behind Citizens Not Politicians, just talk about the range of people that are involved because it's obviously going to be positioned by the opposition as a narrow group of people who have their own specific ideas.

And they're worse than we are is sort of the approach to some degree.

So talk about who's involved in this coalition that has brought this forward and is supporting it and it now has it on the ballot.

- Well, this has been a labor of love.

So many of you, many of your viewers will have signed a petition.

And we had thousands of volunteers from all 88 counties collecting signatures.

They were retired teachers, and auto workers, and college students, everyday folks of all political backgrounds as well as all ages.

And so this is backed by citizens.

This is about citizens for citizens.

This is really restoring power to the people of Ohio because for too long, politicians have known that they would win their seats over and over again and they don't have to represent us.

Instead, this has been fueling partisan extremes because once they win the primary, they know they're going to win.

- Yeah.

- And they play to their big pocketed donors instead of figuring out the best way to serve us.

- To represent all of the population, sure.

- And so this is really about restoring accountability and fairness, restoring power where it belongs to the people of Ohio.

- Yeah, now when people go in to vote, because obviously this is a presidential election year, we'd like to think that everybody votes in every election.

That's the goal to do that.

But there may be people who are coming to the polls this time for maybe the first time in two years, maybe four years, maybe even longer depending on how they voted.

Ohio's changed some of its voting day regulations.

What are some of the things that people need to know as they show up this year if they didn't go to the 2022, maybe they didn't do any of the primaries, any of the special elections, that's different now than maybe the last time they voted.

- Right, or we could have new voters.

- That's a good point.

- So first and foremost, let's make sure that folks are registered to vote and that they verify that registration.

People are removed if they haven't voted for a while.

Additionally, maybe someone's moved and they just haven't changed their address.

So October 7th is the day to check your registration or to register if you need to.

And then keep in mind that now when you go to the early vote center or to your neighborhood polling location on election day, you need a strict form of photo ID.

- [Steve] Identification, okay, alright.

- In fact, we have some of the strictest now in the country.

So you need an Ohio issued driver's license or state ID.

If you're active duty military, you can use your military ID.

If you're a veteran, you can only use your US veteran ID.

County veteran IDs used to work, they no longer do.

But what's been added in are passport books or cards.

- [Steve] Ah, okay.

- So you want to make sure you have that ID and you're going to want to make sure that your polling location hasn't changed and you're going to want to check your early vote hours because there's been some changes there as well.

- Sure, yeah.

And for people who want to look at absentee voting, some of that is a little different.

I know I just recently got a thing saying, do you want an absentee ballot?

Which the bottom line, I guess, is for people is you have to look at the details again.

You may think, oh, I'm going to do it the same way I've done it for the last whatever.

It might be different this time.

Maybe the way you normally go or as you said, the place you go to vote changes.

Because there's a difficulty of course, recruiting enough poll workers to staff all of the polling places that we used to have.

So you have condensing of those.

So where maybe you used to vote in your own small town, maybe you now have to go to a central location in the town next door instead of voting where you used to vote.

And all those things should be checked on the Secretary of State's website.

You can find out, A, am I registered?

And B, where am I registered?

Because you do encounter people that come in and say, "Well, I've always voted here."

Well no, your precinct now is in this location.

So it's sort of, you have to be aware.

You have to make yourself aware.

- Well, and let's talk about absentee voting.

So that's a good option if you don't have that photo ID 'cause you used the last four of your social.

- Ah, okay.

- Remember that absentee voting is incredibly secure.

You have to prove your identity first to get the ballot sent to you.

And then it has to be checked and proven again before it counts.

- [Steve] Right.

- But that is a great way to vote.

Just make sure that you don't delay, because at minimum, you're going to have your ballot mailed to you.

And if you decide to mail it back, that takes time.

- Yeah.

- So you can also track your ballot.

So VoteOhio.gov is the Secretary of State's website, and that's where you can check your registration or register.

That's where you can check hours, many different things including tracking your absentee ballot.

- Yeah, and as I said, you have to sort of be proactive about making sure everything is flowing the way you believe that it is.

If people want to get more involved in, well, first of all, obviously Secretary of State's website is where they want to go to get the true information about where they're voting, how they're voting, what they need to do to make sure they're registered to vote, all of that.

If people want to find out more about Citizens Not Politicians, what's the simplest way for them to do that?

- Yeah, so Citizensnotpoliticians.org is a good website for you to learn about the campaign.

Also, the League of Women Voters website, including our voter guide, Vote411.org, helps you learn about candidates and issues as well and can give you a whole bunch of helpful links to making your voting plan.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- You did mention something super important, which is poll workers.

We need to make sure we have poll workers across the state.

We need about 30,000.

They get a front row seat to democracy.

And remember that 17 year olds who aren't old enough to vote, if they're a junior or senior in high school, can actually get the day off school, get paid, and be a poll worker through Youth at the Booth.

- Yeah, and really see how government works, how this process works.

Because obviously reading about it, participating, actually seeing it function.

And I think one of the things, and you guys would say this too, I know we hear about voting integrity, and there's an implication that therefore we've had these horrible problems when the reality is Ohio has been a gold standard of controlling, you know, managing the lack of voter fraud, all of those sort of things, and yet we're constantly bombarded by that.

The League, obviously, do whatever you can to inform people about how this works, why it works, what isn't true, what is true, that kind of thing.

But when it comes to that discussion, does the League have a position on voter, I mean, obviously you're against voter fraud, you want voter integrity, but is it an uphill battle to convince people that their vote is going to be legitimately counted when that before, we didn't think of that as an issue?

- Well, I hope not.

Let me just say this.

We have a proud history of securing voter integrity, election integrity here in Ohio.

So the League championed actually the bipartisan control of boards of elections, including where you need a Republican key and a Democratic key just to get to the machines.

- Yes.

- Or to do any of the counting.

All of those aspects, post-election audits, pre-election planning, all of those security details, those are things that the League helped champion.

- Ah, okay.

- Even fairness and how the ballot is constructed is something that we really worked hard on.

And so we're very proud of our system here in Ohio that it is exceedingly rare for fraud to happen, and we're just proud of that.

And so we will continue to support election integrity and security.

And those who are worried, the answer isn't to not vote.

The answer is to lean in.

- [Steve] Yes.

- That you become a poll worker.

- [Steve] Yeah, yeah.

- Or join an organization that's non-partisan like the League.

Then you get to really see democracy up front and you get to see how exciting it is to have these free and fair elections.

- Yeah, and one of the things, 'cause I mentioned to you off the air, that I'll go for poll worker training where I live today.

And once you go through that, you realize those people are there, myself included, but the people that I've worked with over the years, we're there to get it right.

We're not there to try to get it wrong or to mismanage the process or do something, you know, duplicitous about it.

We're trying to make sure it goes right to the nth degree.

And I think sometimes people think that, oh, this is a slip shot operation, but everything you do, as mentioned, in this case, there's a Democrat and a Republican.

Everything you do is tracked by someone from each party.

And there are other representatives there watching you do what you do.

So the idea that somebody could like, you know, sort of default the system in some big way, it's impossible.

And yet we're being told, unfortunately, that, oh, you know, you can't trust the voting process.

We've got to clamp down on this and this and this.

But the reality is, at that ground level, at the polling level, everybody there is trying to make sure that every vote is tabulated correctly, that people are voting correctly, that nothing is going on that could create an issue of fraud or a suspicion of a lack of integrity.

- Absolutely.

Let me just jump in and say that at the polling location, we have great security.

Absentee voting, we have great security.

Keep in mind that our machines aren't hooked up to the internet even.

But also, our boards of elections, just like our polling locations, are run by hardworking poll workers who just care about making sure that everyone can vote who is eligible to.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- The same is true as our boards of elections.

These are our neighbors, these are hardworking patriots who make sure that our elections are free and fair.

- Yeah, good answer.

We'll leave it there 'cause that's the way we want people to think about this and understand that that's what it is.

It's not some of the things they hear in other places.

So thank you so much, Jen Miller, League of Women Voters of Ohio.

Issue 1 is on the ballot November, the Citizens Not Politicians.

There's a lot on the ballot, but I think we'd encourage people to make sure they go through the whole ballot and vote, yeah, appropriately.

So good, we appreciate that very much.

Thank you.

You can check us out at WBGU.org.

You can watch us every week on The Journal on WBGU PBS.

We will see you again next time.

Goodnight and good luck.

(soft music)