CINCINNATI (WKRC) — The Ohio Ballot Board is being sued over language it's using for a proposed constitutional amendment that would take politicians out of the redistricting process.

The group Citizens Not Politicians is behind the ballot initiative that would remove Ohio politicians from the map-making process.

In the lawsuit, the group is asking the Ohio Supreme Court to compel the ballot board to reconvene and adopt ballot language that accurately reflects the amendment’s purpose and content. Chris Davey said that Citizens Not Politicians is a bipartisan group that just wants fair maps for Ohio.

The ballot initiative is the third one to go before Ohio voters in the past decade.

"Frank LaRose and the redistricting commission, seven times, drew gerrymandered maps that were ruled unconstitutional seven times by the Ohio Supreme Court," said Davey.

Eventually, those maps were put into place due to opponents running out of time for legal challenges. The Ohio Redistricting Commission is composed of the governor, secretary of state, and auditor, all of whom are currently Republicans. Plus, two members from each party from the state Senate and state House.

If passed, the amendment states that it would make it against the law to draw voting districts that discriminate against or favor any political party. It would ban current or former politicians, political party officials, and lobbyists from sitting on the commission.

Davey said that LaRose proved that politicians can't be trusted to pass fair maps.

By passing horribly illegal, cynical, inaccurate ballot language that's clearly designed to mislead Ohio voters and get them to not support this amendment," said Davey.

The language approved by the ballot board starts off by saying that a vote in favor of the amendment would "repeal constitutional protections against gerrymandering approved by nearly three-quarters of Ohio electors participating in the statewide elections." It goes on to say that it would "eliminate the longstanding ability of Ohio citizens to hold their representatives accountable for establishing fair state legislative and congressional districts."

Davey said that's the opposite of what the proposal would do.

WKRC requested an interview with Secretary of State Frank LaRose to discuss the language, but was told he wasn't available.

His office emailed the following statement:

“The summary approved by the board is fair and factual, and it accurately identifies the substance of the proposed amendment. We invited and included suggestions from both sides of the debate, as well as from the amendment itself. The group that drafted the amendment has no credibility to complain about whether the summary is truthful because their own summary had to be rejected twice by the attorney general as dishonest. Ohio voters can read the proposed amendment for themselves by visiting our website at OhioSOS.gov, and the Ballot Board has approved an advertising plan to put the full amendment in newspapers across the state – three times in all 88 counties between now and the election.” Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.

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