Ohio’s Stolen Democracy

How Gerrymandering Silenced Millions And Turned Elections Into Theater 

-by Jerrad Christian

There are few Ohioans alive that know what a fair election looks like. Ohio has been gerrymandered for decades, but the modern— industrial strength— version started in 2010. Since then, none of us have had a voice in our representation.

A safe seat is a bad seat. Folks either get way too comfortable with power or way too comfortable without it, making them useless to the people. So when I say ‘stop gerrymandering’, it isn’t a vie to empower Democratic lawmakers to repeat the sins of the Republicans. I actually want fair representation where those with power must be responsive to those they represent.

When politicians know the outcome before a single ballot is cast, there is no recourse for a failure to even be good people, let alone a good representative. Every veto can be overridden, every law passed without even bringing in folks from the other party— leaving millions of Ohioans fully without a say in how their laws are passed.

Courts told the Ohio legislature again and again that their maps were unconstitutional. Multiple times they struck down state maps. They threw out congressional ones. And what did the politicians do? They shrugged, redrew nearly identical lines, and dared anyone to stop them. The Ohio Supreme Court said no— that they said it violated the constitution Ohioans themselves had amended in 2015 and 2018 to demand fairness. The politicians ignored it. The farce continued. In the end, the state ran elections on maps already declared illegal. That is “democracy” in a gerrymandered state.

Take the “Snake on the Lake,” that twisted 9th District crawling along Lake Erie. It wasn’t drawn to keep communities together; it was drawn to break them apart. It exists to keep Marcy Kaptur or her opponent boxed in, not to give Cleveland or Toledo or Lorain a voice. Across the state the story is the same. District after district engineered to be noncompetitive, to kill suspense, to make elections theater rather than choice. In most of Ohio, the tightest races aren’t even close— twenty-point landslides are the norm.

We know what happens when politicians run in lines they drew themselves. They stop listening, schools crumble, healthcare rots, opioids tear through towns while legislators hold hearings on culture-war bullshit. People scream about jobs leaving, about poisoned water, about rents they can’t afford, and nothing changes. Why would it? There’s no risk. No threat to the unearned power. No accountability. Gerrymandering has eaten our power— and Ohio Republicans have grown fat on it.

Seventy-two percent of Ohioans voted for reforms in 2015, seventy-five in 2018. Three out of four citizens said enough, draw maps that are fair. The politicians spit on that too.

In 2024, when citizens put Issue 1 on the ballot to create a truly independent commission, the establishment sabotaged it with legal tricks and misleading language. It failed, and the GOP chair had the audacity to boast that “confusing Ohioans was a good strategy”. That is the level of contempt for us all, even their own party members.

These issues are bigger than party. They are a fraud upon the people. An illusion of freedom sold by men and women too cowardly to face us in a fair fight. They hide behind these lines knowing they cannot stand in front of us.

Ohio Republican legislators are thieves. They have stolen representation, freedom, the futures of our families, our society— and in return given us anger and apathy. They have stolen democracy itself and wrapped themselves in our flag, hefted up a cross and burned our constitution.

This is the rage no court can quiet. The rage of voices erased. The rage of people who know their vote is supposed to mean something, but doesn’t. And one day, that rage will cut through every crooked line they drew to keep themselves safe.

Because the truth is simple: democracy doesn’t die because someone stole it. It dies when we let them keep it.