Ohio counties are divided into two congressional districts

Megan Henry
| Ohio Capital Journal

Tuscarawas County is a county divided.

The northeastern Ohio county is divided into two congressional districts – the Sixth District and the Twelfth District.

“It’s frustrating because we’re split down the middle,” said Tuscarawas Democratic Party Chairwoman Gail Garbrandt. “People don’t know what part of the county is in six and what part of it is in twelve. Why can’t we all be in one congressional district?”

Tuscarawas County is not the only Ohio county to be in multiple congressional districts.

Franklin, Hamilton, and Cuyahoga counties are all in two different congressional districts, but Ohio’s three largest cities—Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland—are in those counties, respectively.

“There are some places like Columbus that are too big to fit into a congressional district,” said University of Cincinnati political science professor David Niven. “You have to split them up.”

Clark, Delaware, Holmes, Stark, Miami, Fayette and Wyandot counties are also all divided into two different congressional districts.

Who do 6 and 12 represent?

Republican Michael Rulli serves the 6th Congressional District, which stretches from Mahoning County all the way down to Washington County. Rulli was elected to Congress through a special election last month.

Republican Troy Balderson represents the Twelfth Congressional District which includes Guernsey, Muskingum, Coshocton, Morgan, Athens, Perry, Fairfield, Licking, Knox and parts of Delaware, Holmes and Tuscarawas Counties. Balderson has served the 12th District since 2018.

Garbrandt imagines having to share the representation of a county with another member of Congress would be a challenge.

“There are so many other dynamics that come into play,” she said. “What if you don’t really have an affinity with the other person in the other district and you don’t communicate?”

Rulli and Balderson’s office did not respond to Capital Journal’s request for comment.

Causing confusion

When congressional maps are drawn that split counties into two districts, it can cause confusion, Niven said.

“It’s very natural for people to assume we’re all in the same district together,” he said.

Garbrandt said she experiences this at her Board of Elections job and said they had to turn away early voters from the 12th District who came to the Tuscarawa Board of Elections office wanting to cast their ballot in the recent congressional district special election.

On the other hand, some people choose to stay home and not vote because they don’t want the embarrassment of being wrong in their district.

“That’s the scary part,” Garbrandt said.

In an effort to try to reduce confusion, she is trying to encourage voters in Tuscarawas County to get absentee ballots.

The Tuscarawas County Republicans declined to speak to the Capital Journal for this story.

Redistribution change

Citizens Not Politicians is trying to fix gerrymandering in Ohio by adding a citizen-led redistricting commission to the Ohio Constitution.

The Secretary of State of Ohio recently certified 535,005 signatures for the election initiative Citizens Not Politicians.

The Ohio Redistricting Commission currently consists of the Ohio House Speaker, Ohio Senate President, Governor, Secretary of State, State Auditor, and two minority party legislative leaders.

“It’s not supposed to protect the incumbents,” Garbrandt said.

The Citizens Not Politicians amendment would replace the current commission with the 15-member Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission. Five of their members would match the governor’s political party at the time, five would be from the party of the gubernatorial candidate who received the second most votes in the last election, and five would be unaffiliated members.

Follow OCJ Reporter Megan Henry on Twitter.