I’m lucky to be a part of an enlightened community of fellow webizens, one of them being Jeff at Daytonology, who took a look at the gerrymandering of OH-3 and the power that Special Interest Groups have played in this overpriced auction pretending to be an election:

Daytonology: The Rotten Borough
Readers familiar with British history will know about the old rotten boroughs and pocket boroughs that were eliminated in two waves of Parliamentary reform. These reforms removed a system were representation was bought outright or heavily influenced by the rich and by influential local aristocracy.

Well, the USA has an oligarchy, not a aristocracy, and we have a one-man/one-vote system and secret ballot, so our rotten boroughs operate differently, more via gerrymandering to build in majorities, “safe seats”, and political influence via campaign contributions from interest groups and wealthy individuals.

The Ohio 3rd Congressional district has become such a rotten borough…

I highly recommend you look at the whole post.

I also believe that there already is a way to divide districts in a practical way- Neilsen and Arbitron call them “Media Markets” and we need to look at dividing up our state so each district has the fewest media markets per district, to help cut costs of running, and not to create artificially high marketing costs that protect incumbents.

The last thing that should be used to divvy up a district is voter roles, as is how OH-3 came to be one of the oddest shaped districts in the State. Thanks Jeffrey, for doing the research to show how the money is getting in the way of fair elections.