Voting Experts On Ohio Losing A Congressional Seat

2021 is scheduled to be the year that brings about a new mapmaking process for Ohio's state legislative, and congressional districts.

Reforms to the process passed overwhelmingly in 2015 and 2018, and the majority appear ready to finally rework Ohio's gerrymandered maps. 

But not so fast. Data from the US Census is instrumental to redrawing the districts - yes, the same census that was fought over last year - pushed back due to the pandemic, then sued over by the Trump administration. 

The first round of census data was made public Monday, and confirmed what many suspected, that Ohio will indeed be losing one Congressional seat, down from 16 to 15.

But more detailed census data will be needed to paint a clearer picture of future districts.
The problem is, that additional data isn't expected to be out until September, beyond the time the state deadline for re-drawing maps has passed.

On The Sound of Ideas, we'll look at how this first round of data lays the groundwork for new congressional districts - but still leaves many questions unanswered, and how some folks are already getting involved in drawing lines for the new maps. 

Later in the hour, we look a new report about an uptick in hate crimes, and finally another NFL draft check-in, this time with Ideastream's Glenn Forbes.

Resources

Districtr.org - Districtr is a free, public web tool for districting and community identification, brought to you by the MGGG Redistricting Lab.

ADL Report on Anti-Semitic Incidents in Ohio

-Catherine Turcer, Executive Director, Common Cause Ohio
-Ifeolu Claytor, Ohio Campaign Manager, All Voting Is Local; Political Action Chair, NAACP of Greater Cleveland

-James Pasch, Regional Director, Anti-Defamation League

-Glenn Forbes, Host and Producer, ideastream