Tom Vodrey, Opinion Editor–

With Election Day just around the corner, it’s important to remember what is at stake next Tuesday. 

Make no mistake: Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. In private the former president muses on how Adolf Hitler “did some good things,” and how he wishes his subordinates were as loyal to him as the Nazi generals who perpetrated World War II and the Holocaust. Those who’ve worked with Trump, such as former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, call him a “fascist to the core.” In Project 2025, those close to Trump and poised to serve in a second Trump presidency plan to make abortion illegal nationally, end birthright citizenship and deport tens of millions of our neighbors, and expand the powers of the president to use the military against journalists and protestors.

In our election to the U.S. Senate, Bernie Moreno is running on the same extremist platform as Donald Trump. He believes that women over the age of 50 are “crazy” to care about reproductive rights and supports a federal anti-choice ban on abortion with no exceptions for the victims of rape or incest. Moreno cares for no one but himself, as evidenced by the multiple wage theft lawsuits filed against him by employees of his car dealerships.

So too does this struggle for democracy extend to our local races, which don’t get the same attention as those federal contests. Both chambers of our Statehouse have been elected using maps that they themselves drew to benefit their own reelection, a practice known as gerrymandering. Instead of voters choosing their representatives, in Ohio representatives choose their voters.

While Republicans make up about 54% of Ohio’s electorate, they control 66% of Ohio’s U.S. House seats, 68% of seats in the state House, and 78% in the state Senate. This is not only unfair, but in the opinion of the Ohio Supreme Court seven times over, illegal. However, the opinions of citizens and even of courts can be ignored in a system which is rigged in favor of a single party.

Fortunately, we don’t have to sit back and watch. Non-partisan groups including the Ohio League of Women Voters are pushing to reform the redistricting process in Ohio to check the power of politicians. Issue 1 would create a 15-member commission of politically, demographically, and geographically diverse citizens to fairly draw the districts of our elected officials, similar to processes which have been used in seven other states to great success.

We have to be willing to stand up for democracy, because those who see it as a nuisance never rest. If you were to read the description of Issue 1 on your Ohio ballot, you would be excused for thinking it does the exact opposite of what it will achieve. The description written by the Republican-controlled Ohio Ballot Board claims that Issue 1 would give the power to gerrymander the state to unelected officials. This is a lie, plain and simple, written by those who are afraid of Ohio voters reminding them who is in charge.

Donald Trump, Bernie Moreno, and the campaign against Issue 1 are all part of the same movement. It’s a movement which sees elections as suggestions, to be ignored if they don’t go their way. It’s a movement that sees our leaders not as our representatives but as our subjugators. It’s a movement which we must do everything we can to defeat if we do not want government of the people, by the people, and for the people to perish.

The choice is clear for Ohio voters: we must vote for those who appeal to our better angels. While individual candidates may have flaws, I would rather elect those who do not always live up to their principles than those who fully embody a lack of principle. This is why I’ll be voting for Kamala Harris, Sherrod Brown, and yes on Issue 1. Each is a vote for a better tomorrow, in which all are equal before the law, and in which the people, not the politicians, rule.

Tom Vodrey ‘25 is a politics and public affairs major from Cleveland.