August 24 2011 at 03:31 PM

Network groups announce winners in Ohio redistricting competition

Filed in: Redistricting | News | Ohio
Network groups announce winners in Ohio redistricting competition

The League of Women Voters of Ohio Education Fund, the Midwest Democracy Network, and Ohio Citizen Action released the winning maps from the Ohio Redistricting Competition today.

The competition, which was launched on July 19, allows private citizens the opportunity to draw district lines for the Ohio House and Senate, using publicly available software and the same population and voting data that is being used by Ohio public officials.  The District Builder software - a web-based, open-source map drawing tool - is developed by the Public Mapping Project and supported by Metro Chicago Information Center.

A parallel competition to draw Congressional maps is ongoing at http://www.drawthelineohio.org, with maps due by Sept. 11.

The competition required participants to design state legislative districts which comply with all federal and state legal requirements. The maps were scored based on objective nonpartisan criteria which used mathematical formulas to measure the degree to which the districts respected county boundaries, were compact, balanced, and did not favor either political party.

“Private citizens designed districts that are more politically balanced than our current districts and that are still more compact and split fewer counties than our current districts,” stated Jim Slagle, Manager of the Ohio Campaign for Accountable Redistricting. “Each of the winning maps scored higher than the maps of our current districts.”

Slagle announced the top two high scoring plans and the amount of prize money each is being awarded:

1st Place ($1,000) – Mike Fortner, Illinois State Representative (Dist. 95 – R), former mayor of West Chicago, also an Associate Professor of Physics at Northern Illinois University, West Chicago, Illinois.

  • House map had 25 highly competitive districts as compared to ten under the current map.
  • Senate map had an equal number of districts which favored Democrats and Republicans, as compared to the current map where 20 of 33 districts favor Republicans.
  • House and Senate maps created 37 county fragments as compared to 68 in the current maps.

2nd Place ($500) – Tim Clarke, attorney, Avon Lake

  • Senate map had 14 competitive districts as compared with nine under the current map
  • House map had 22 highly competitive districts as compared to ten under the current map
  • House and Senate maps were more compact and had fewer county splits than the current maps.

Fortner’s and Clarke’s maps will be submitted to the Ohio Apportionment Board for their consideration and will remain available for public review at http://www.drawthelineohio.org. The League of Women Voters, Ohio Citizens Action, and the other competition partners are urging the Apportionment Board to consider these nonpartisan maps rather than maps drawn in the political backrooms.

View the winning maps at Draw the Line Ohio

Read the full press release here (PDF)