Letter to the editor: Choose one of the maps drawn in the Fair Districts competition

Last week was a landmark week for the voters of Ohio. The Ohio Supreme Court struck down the state legislative maps and the congressional maps that had been designed by the majority party without input from the minority party.

The justices found that the Redistricting Commission and the Legislature did not uphold the constitutional amendments passed overwhelmingly by the voters of Ohio in 2015 and 2018 in designing their maps for new districts for the next decade. They now have 10 days to come up with new maps for our state offices and 30 days for congressional. That is certainly a short timeline; but necessary for candidates who need to declare their candidacy soon. They don’t even know what district they can represent.

There is a solution. I am writing to suggest that the Redistricting Commission simply choose one of the maps that were generated by a competition last summer held by the Fair Districts Coalition. These maps were evaluated by computer software and mapping experts who showed how they measured up on proportionality (representative fairness), minority representation, and compactness. These criteria are deemed to be critical to making each vote count in any election.

We have languished for too long under the thumb of one party, only to see that party ignore many of its own members, except the most extreme and vocal of the tribe. Please send an email or call your representatives to let them know that process is simple if they will adopt one of these excellent maps. See them here: https://www.fairdistrictsohio.org/mappingwinners.

– Carol Canavan, North Canton

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Letter: Choose one of the maps from the Fair Districts competition