toledoblade.com --

Ohioans who are embarrassed by the national attention paid as recently as last year to our clumsy, inefficient, and occasionally unethical elections - and that should be all Ohioans - should be encouraged by a grass-roots initiative that would make the necessary repairs.

While we have already expressed our concerns about State Issue 2 and the problems we see with unlimited absentee voting, we have no such reluctance to support the other three proposals in a constitutional reform package advanced by a citizens group called Reform Ohio Now.

Voters should embrace State Issues 3, 4, and 5 because they represent a great opportunity to fix what ails Ohio's overtly political elections system. They will do that by putting in place reasonable campaign contribution limits, creating a bipartisan commission to establish the boundaries of congressional and legislative districts, and removing oversight of elections from the Secretary of State.

Issue 4 is clearly the most controversial of the R.O.N. proposals, but it is also the most needed. Quite simply, it would end an evil system that perpetuates one-party domination, no matter which party it is, by removing from the dominant party's control the process of setting congressional and legislative district boundaries.

Instead a state redistricting commission would be established to draw district lines, and for the first time the overriding factor would be an intrinsic American value: competition. The commission would be required to make districts as competitive as possible to give challengers at least a fair chance to defeat an incumbent whose only strength might be a district tilted heavily in his or her favor.

Make no mistake. Backers of Issue 4 insist this is about good government, and ending the tradition of gerrymandering for political advantage is an outcome devoutly to be wished. But Issue 4 is also about power.

The Republicans have it; the Democrats want it. There is no grand philosophical divide here. A similar plan is on the ballot in California, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, aggressively supports it, while the Democrats, who control the legislature, want no part of it.

The biggest flaw of the current partisan-driven system is the built-in delay that perpetuates district boundaries for 10 years, until the next census rolls around. Legislative districts, state or federal, should reflect the changing nature of the population. People move. Urban, suburban, and rural areas grow and shrink. But what should take just two or three elections to fix now takes much longer.

Issue 4 would provide a fix in 2007, with another set of maps due in 2011, after the next census, and then every 10 years thereafter. Taking redistricting out of the hands of politicians and entrusting the task to an independent commission would at least mitigate the effect of the long delay.

Opponents of Issue 4 have already drawn "what if" maps which they say show what truly competitive districts would mean. One district, Ohio's 16th congressional district, would stretch nearly the entire width of the state under their worst-case scenario, they contend.

But in addition to competitiveness, the commission would be required to preserve "communities of interest based on geography, economics, or race." No district stretching nearly from Indiana to Pennsylvania would pass that test - or, for that matter, constitutional muster.

Ohio Republicans are already wary of the 2006 statewide election. Their leader is the only governor in the state's history to be convicted of a crime. Coingate has damaged Republican candidates and makes them vulnerable next year. Gov. Bob Taft insists he will not resign, but if Issue 4 is passed by a significant margin, he may have to reconsider rather than lead his party off a cliff next year.

Issue 3 would simply restore campaign contribution limits that were already in place until the General Assembly raised them last year.

Candidates for statewide office could accept $2,000 from an individual and $1,000 from political action committees under Issue 3. For legislative candidates, the same limits would be $1,000 and $500. Corporate donations would not be allowed. The higher limits enacted last year set a $10,000 limit for statewide candidates and permit corporate donations.

If the state's Coingate scandal served any useful purpose, it should be to remind Ohioans of the harm that can grow out of the buying and selling of influence.

Finally, Issue 5 would correct a glaring flaw in Ohio's election system. It would create a bipartisan board to supervise elections, removing the secretary of state from his election oversight role.

Political analysts across the country scratched their heads last year when the man who helped lead the charge in Ohio for the re-election of President Bush was the same man who would supervise counting the votes.

Voters in Lucas County should have no trouble understanding the wisdom of Issue 5, having watched the multiple embarrassments in recent years of the Lucas County Board of Elections.

It's telling that all three of these issues, plus Issue 2, are on the ballot because of citizen initiative, not because the political establishment or the party in power wanted them.

Ohioans can take a big step toward ending the political jokes at their expense by eliminating the root causes and voting YES on Issues 3, 4, and 5.