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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Promoters of four ballot issues that would have changed the way Ohioans vote took a solid hit on Election Day, but expect the Legislature to make changes on their own anyway.
And one of the most vocal critics of the issues is ready to accommodate them.
The issues would have opened absentee balloting to all voters, lowered the cap on individual campaign contributions and put boards, instead of elected officials, in charge of drawing legislative and congressional districts and overseeing the state's elections.
In the campaign against Issues 2-5, state Rep. Kevin DeWine acknowledged that the way the state draws district lines needs work. A board of elected state officials draws legislative districts and the Legislature draws congressional districts. All the mapmakers are Republicans. The ballot issue would have given that power to a judge-led board.
In 1981, Democrats controlled the pencil and Republicans asked voters to change the rules. That issue lost badly as well. DeWine, a suburban Dayton Republican, said he's going to study how the system can be changed "if there's something reasonable.''
"The problems are ones that were talked about 20 years ago in that the party in power uses the power of the pen for their particular advantage without looking at the big picture,'' DeWine said. "The temptation is there and that's what needs to be resolved.''
Former Rep. Ed Jerse, a Euclid Democrat and the director of the issues' campaign, said minority Democrats in the House should hold DeWine to his promise.
"The current system is not a good one for redistricting. We should challenge the Republicans to present their solution to this,'' Jerse said.
Voters soundly rejected four issues Tuesday that would have overhauled the way Ohio runs its elections, ending a high-pitched campaign that had hoped to capitalize on a Republican investment scandal and complaints about last year's presidential election.
With 93 percent of precincts reporting, the absentee ballot question was behind 64 percent to 36 percent; campaign contributions, 67 percent to 33 percent; redistricting, 70 percent to 30 percent; and election oversight, 71 percent to 29 percent.
The complexity of the ballot language likely was a major reason for the issues' demise, said Gene Beaupre, a political scientist at Xavier University in Cincinnati.
"That has to be a big contributor to it. To the opponents' credit, they ran a well-funded, effective campaign,'' Beaupre said.
The coalition backing the changes saw an opportunity amid an investment scandal that has cost the state $300 million and led to the conviction of Republican Gov. Bob Taft on ethics charges. The campaign came within a year of the 2004 election in Ohio, which gave President Bush his re-election victory.
Proponents said changes were necessary to restore integrity to state elections and take big money out of politics. Opponents said the issues were nothing but a power grab by Democrats who have been on the political sidelines for 11 years.
The contributions issue proposed lowering the limit from $10,000 to $2,000 for statewide candidates and $1,000 for legislative candidates.
Republicans tried to defuse the absentee balloting provision by passing a similar idea in the Legislature. Taft signed the bill, but it won't take effect until after Tuesday's election.
The last campaign during an election with no statewide races to capture the same attention was in 1983, when voters turned down a tax repeal and raised the legal drinking age for beer from 18 to 21. The last time as many issues were on the statewide ballot was 1992, when voters overwhelmingly approved term limits.
On the Net:
http://www.reformohionow.org
http://www.protectyourvote.org
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