Indecipherable Ballot Initiatives

Created
Wed, 30/10/2024 - 08:30
Updated
Wed, 30/10/2024 - 08:30
This is something that has driven me crazy for years. Here in California it’s an ongoing problem. Even this year we have a couple of these things on the ballot. Bolts.com took a look at one of them on the Ohio ballot and it’s an incredible story of political gamesmanshipt and special interest influence. It’s a gerrymandering initiative and it could affect all of us: When Songgu Kwon went to the polls earlier this month, he was eager to help Ohio adopt an independent redistricting commission. The comic book writer and illustrator, who lives near Athens, dislikes the process with which politicians have carved up Ohio into congressional and legislative districts that favor them, enabling Republicans to lock in large majorities. So he was pleased that voting rights groups had placed Issue 1, a proposal meant to create fairer maps, on the Ohio ballot this fall.  “I’m in support of any measures that make the process more fair to reflect the will of the people, instead of letting the politicians decide how to gerrymander,” says Kwon. In the voting booth, he reviewed the text in front of him. His ballot read that voting ‘yes’ would set up a panel “required to gerrymander the boundaries of state legislative and congressional districts,” and that it would “repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering.”  So Kwon voted ‘no’ on the measure—given what he’d just read, he thought, that had to be the way to signal support for independent redistricting. He’d gone in planning to vote ‘yes,’ but he was thrown off…