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The Sound of Ideas - 8-3-2022 - Ohio professors weigh in on whether another national political party will make a difference
 
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The August primary that Ohio concluded on Tuesday resulted from a bogged-down map-drawing process in which lawmakers were unable to pass a map that met voter-approved reforms to make elections more competitive. According to a Gallup poll reported on in March of last year, more than 60-percent of Americans think both Republicans and Democrats are doing a poor job. Dissatisfaction with the current two-party system is running pretty high.

Last week, former Democrat Andrew Yang and former Republican Christine Todd Whitman launched the Forward Party. It is a centrist party aimed at bringing together those unhappy with the Democrats and Republicans. Will a third political party engage more voters and help alleviate the gridlock created by the two-party system? We ask our political experts.

But first, Ohio's unprecedented August primary may have gone largely unnoticed, including by voters. Voters who did cast ballots in the August primary were voting on their party choices for
the Ohio House and Ohio Senate. These races had to be pushed back from May because of the redistricting process that ended without a map that met voter-approved reforms and with state district maps put into place by a federal court.



Guests:
Thomas Sutton, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, Baldwin Wallace University
Brianna Mack, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Politics and Government, Ohio Wesleyan University
Andy Chow, News Editor, Statehouse News Bureau, Ohio Public Radio/TV
August 3, 2022