Voters backed Columbus City Council-led reform efforts that would expand council by four new members and make it so the nine existing members are only elected by voters within the nine city council districts.
Issue 9 passed with 57% of voters approving of the measure compared with 43% voting against, according to unofficial results from the Franklin County Board of Elections. A second ballot issue — a grassroots effort called Issue 8 — passed overwhelmingly with 82% of voters in support and 18% of voters against.
Those results are with more than 99% of precincts reporting.
Both issues sought to reform the current Columbus City Council system. Under this system, the nine city council members are required to live within one of nine districts, but are elected by every voter in the city.
Issue 9 would expand city council by four new members who are elected “at-large” by every voter in the city and institute the only change proposed by Issue 8, which sought to change the nine existing council seats, so that only voters within the nine council districts get elected.
Two of the four new council members will be added in 2028 and the other two will be added in 2030. The changes to the district council members would go into effect immediately, impacting the next elections in 2027.
Issue 9 also would redraw the district map in 2028, addressing concerns about the current map by some Black community activists. Lastly, Issue 9 would lower the number of signatures required for a candidate to qualify for the ballot in the district council races from 250 signatures to 150.
Issue 9 was put on the ballot by city council in response to Issue 8. A group called Our City Our Say collected more than 23,000 signatures to put Issue 8 on the ballot.
Since Issue 9 passed, it ultimately didn’t matter if Issue 8 passed or failed.
If neither ballot measure passed, the current system would’ve remained in place.
