If I can get political for just a moment...

This isn't about the Presidential race that's coming to a close on November 6th. I don't want to preach my ideology at anyone. I don't want to be that guy that beats people over the head with my views of the world. I'm going to vote for who I am going to vote for and you are going to vote who you are going to vote for. I'm not going to change your mind, you're not going to change mine. If you want to argue it for the fun of it with no hurt feelings, fair enough. But that's not that point.

This is about a local issue here in Ohio known as Issue 2. Essentially what this does is change who can redistrict or gerrymander if you will. It takes that out of the hands of the legislature and puts it into the hands of judges who would elect a committee to elect a committee to decide districts. It's a very messy and convoluted process if you read how it's presented. It's literally a whole page on my absentee ballot and it makes no sense.

We've all been taught how gerrymandering works and I won't go into it here. We've all seen how ridiculous some of the various districts across the United States looks. No one really likes it and in general I think it's a bad thing for the United States as a whole.

So that brings this convoluted Issue 2 and it's proponents. I don't want to call them stupid... just naive and shortsighted. I believe there are two types of people that support this:

1. People that have fallen into the trap that it changes something they dislike and therefore it's good.

2. People that see the flaws in this new system and want to be able to corrupt the system for their own personal gain.

The second group of people don't really need explaining. You'll see them latch on to almost any issue they can. The first group of people are a more troubling group. They see something in our government that isn't right and they want to change it. We can all agree that's a noble pursuit and I even agree that gerrymandering is a bad thing. Past that, it starts to fall apart. They've fallen into a trap where they're latching on to any solution that rears it's head and I don't think they've taken the time to consider the ramifications of what they're proposing. There really is wisdom that needs to be considered here. 'Sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don't.'

I am not one for excitement over issues but this one scares me a bit. It's a very complicated process that doesn't feel well thought out and it looks easily used and abused. The main issues I have with it are as follows:

Lack of accountability: It seems hopeless at times but you can still vote against the legislative branch if they act in a way you disapprove of. It is historically difficult to vote out incumbents but it does happen. That's being accountable. At the end of the day, they need you to vote for them and that will keep a degree of checks in place.

Under this system, there is no accountability. This is an un-elected committee of people making a gigantic impact on the political future of the state. There is nowhere in this process where the electorate has a say. That's bad, governments tend to do bad things when they aren't being held accountable by the population.

It's unconstitutional: Pretty simple here. The legislative branch is supposed to determine elections. The rules, ties and even who votes for who. This takes that power away and puts it in the hand of people not in the legislature. It violates the separation of powers.

Inappropriate use of judges: Judges are supposed to be impartial in their actions as judges. This would create a situation that makes them political figures. It would undermine the integrity of their positions.

Really my point to this whole article is this. This amendment to the state constitution is very poorly thought out. It could create a worse system than what is currently in place. Wanting change is only human but we should make sure that we're actually fixing the issue at hand, not trading a set of problems for a potentially much worse set of problems. That's all I have to say on this. I'll post about geeky fun stuff later.