OHIO — After voters approved changes to the way Ohio draws its congressional and state legislative district, those revisions will be used for the first time after official decennial U.S. census data was released Monday.

The data indicated that Ohio's population growth slowed by comparison to other states, causing the number of U.S. House members serving the state to drop from 16 to 15.

What You Need To Know

  • Ohio lawmakers redraw the boundaries for U.S. House, Ohio House and Ohio Senate districts every 10 years based on U.S. census data

  • Voters in 2015 and 2018 approved new ways of drawing legislative districts in the state

  • The vast majority of U.S. House and Ohio General Assembly elections in 2020 were not competitive

  • New boundaries for U.S. House, Ohio House and Ohio Senate seats go into effect with the 2022 election
​Changes in the U.S. population over the last 10 years, with some states growing faster than others, prompts the U.S. government to reallocate the number of congressional seats per state. The reallocation of seats would take effect for the 2022 election.

How states draw their districts can vary, but federal court rulings have stipulated that districts within a state should have roughly an equal number of constituents. This applies to U.S. House as well as state legislative districts.

In recent redistricting cycles, Republicans have drawn the districts to give their party the edge in U.S. House, Ohio House and Ohio Senate elections. This has caused some districts to take on strange shapes. For instance, Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s district hugs the Lake Erie shoreline from Toledo to Cleveland in an attempt to pack as many Democratic votes into one district.

The U.S. federal government originally pushed its March 31 census deadline to the end of September because of the pandemic. Ohio Attorney General David Yost sued the federal government, citing that Ohio law stipulated that new districts must be drawn by Sept. 1.

The processes that were in place in 2011 that gave Republicans a 12-4 edge in U.S. House seats and overwhelming majorities in both the Ohio House and Senate has changed.

How U.S. House districts will be drawn

In 2018, nearly 75% of voters approved changing how U.S. House districts are drawn in the state. Rather than districts being approved by a simple majority in the Ohio House and Senate with the governor signing the districts into law, proposals must now get 60% support in the House and Senate. Also, 50% of both Republicans and Democrats are required to approve the proposed districts.

If a proposal fails to pass, instead of legislators drawing the districts on their own, a panel which includes two state GOP legislators, two state Democratic legislators, the governor, secretary of state and state auditor will decide on the districts. The seven-member board is tasked with drawing the districts and must come to an agreement.

If the seven-member board is unable to reach an agreement, the House and Senate will then be tasked again with drawing districts, this time only 33% of the minority party would be needed to approve the districts.

If all of those steps fail to produce districts, the Ohio House and Senate can vote by a simple majority, but this time, those districts would only be in place for four years, which would prompt state lawmakers to carry out the process again in 2025.

The bill stipulates that 65 Ohio counties must be kept within one congressional district, while 18 others can be split once. Five of Ohio’s largest counties can be split twice.

How Ohio House and Senate districts are drawn

In 2015, 72% of Ohio voters passed a new process that sought to eliminate political gerrymandering in state legislative districts.

Ohio legislative seats will be drawn by the seven-member redistricting panel. If at least two members of each party agree to the proposed districts, the boundaries will be put in place for 10 years. However, if the proposed districts only receive a simple majority of the seven-member panel without at least two members of the minority party agreeing, the districts are only in place for four years.

The panel is instructed not to unduly divide counties, towns and cities into multiple districts. The panel is also instructed not to favor one party in the drawing process.

Will new process make seats more competitive?

This is a huge question given if the two parties cannot come to some sort of agreement. It's possible for the majority party to draw districts, although for a shorter period of time.

In 2020, 14 out of 16 congressional races in Ohio were decided by more than 10 percentage points. The overwhelming majority of Ohio House and Senate races were also decided by double-digit margins in 2020.