COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The Ohio Supreme Court has set a 4 p.m. Tuesday deadline for the Ohio Redistricting Commission to respond to new arguments from the League of Women Voters of Ohio and others that its latest congressional redistricting maps unconstitutionally favor the Republican Party.
The Supreme Court has rejected three sets of Republican-drawn maps, citing new anti-gerrymandering rules that voters passed in 2015 and 2018, and the most recent set of state legislative and congressional maps were just completed in the last couple of weeks.
The court is currently considering whether to approve the latest state legislative and congressional maps, which are supposed to be used for the first time in the upcoming May 3 primary election.
The court could rule soon. If it rejects either map, Republicans have signaled they will be forced to move the May 3 election.
Gov. Mike DeWine signed a bill Friday that would temporarily loosen deadlines for military voters to receive and return their mail ballots. The new law is aimed at cleaning up one of the spillover effects of ongoing redistricting delays.
Senate Bill 11 pushes back a March 18 deadline for elections officials to mail the ballots to April 3. It also doubles the amount of time the ballots can arrive back in Ohio after Election Day – from 10 days after to 20 days after – and still count.
Republican lawmakers fast-tracked the bill this week after elections officials, particularly in Cuyahoga and other large counties, warned they couldn’t make the March 18 deadline while asking that legislators move the primary.
House Democrats unsuccessfully tried to block the bill on Wednesday, saying that Republicans should instead just move the primary election since elections workers also have warned that rushing through elections preparations could result in errors.
Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Republican Attorney General Dave Yost also had asked that lawmakers move the primary election, although LaRose now has said with the military deadlines addressed, he thinks election planning is on track.
But legislative Republicans have been unwilling to do so, citing the effects that moving the election would have on local and statewide elections, which are unaffected by the redistricting issues. Besides moving the military voting deadlines, which they attached $200,000 in extra funding in a procedural move to bypass Democratic opposition, they also approved $9 million in extra pay this week for elections workers to deal with the compressed timelines.
Moving the election also would undermine one of Republicans’ key arguments GOP leaders have used with the Ohio Supreme Court to defend their maps -- there is a strong precedent in federal elections law that says judges should avoid making major changes close to an election since it risks confusing voters and disrupting planning.
Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer reporter Andrew Tobias contributed to this story.
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