DAYTON — Leaders of a statewide push to change how districts are drawn for the state legislature and U.S. Congress defended their plan Wednesday against claims from a state Republican spokesman that the plan is poorly written and inspired by Democrats.

Voters First, the group leading the redistricting reform effort, was on Dayton’s Courthouse Square on Wednesday, launching a local petition drive. Voters First needs 386,000 valid signatures by July 4 to get a state constitutional amendment on the November ballot. We Are Ohio, which led the fight against state Republicans over the Senate Bill 5 collective bargaining law last year, has now teamed up with the nonpartisan League of Women Voters and others under the Voters First umbrella.

That alliance has caused some debate, with redistricting reform backers saying their push is a nonpartisan effort to give voters more power, while state Republicans disagree.

The amendment calls for a politician-free citizens’ commission — made up equally of Republicans, Democrats and independents — to draw district boundaries, rather than the current all-politician system.

“This is most definitely a nonpartisan issue that affects the rights of every citizen,” said Susan Hesselgesser, president of the League of Women Voters of the Greater Dayton Area. “Our current system enables and emboldens the incumbent party to callously draw district lines that ... allow politicians to consciously choose their voters rather than allowing voters a choice to choose their elected representatives.”

Mike Dittoe, spokesman for the Ohio House Speaker William Batchelder, R-Medina, said the Voters First effort is being “mischaracterized as a nonpartisan effort,” saying recent Democratic state officials are helping lead the project.

He also said We Are Ohio is largely affiliated with Democrats.

Dayton City Commissioner Nan Whaley, a member of the Democratic Party’s State Central Committee, argued that We Are Ohio is a broad-based coalition from all parties.

“Sixty-two percent of voters voted no on (Senate Bill 5),” Whaley said, referring to We Are Ohio’s signature issue. “There’s not 62 percent Democrats in Ohio ... so I don’t think you can view We Are Ohio as just a Democratic group.”

Dittoe also said the proposed amendment is the wrong way to address the issue.

He said Batchelder believes redistricting reform should be handled either through the legislative redistricting task force formed early this year, or through the constitutional modernization commission.

“The league has taken what I would classify as a very cynical view on the efforts of the task force,” Dittoe said.

League of Women Voters members testified at last week’s task force hearing, but they have expressed impatience with the state legislature’s failure to implement redistricting reform in past years.

Dittoe also called the amendment “very undemocratic,” claiming it would prohibit 7 million Ohioans (in a state of 11.5 million people) from serving on the eventual commission that would draw the lines, including people who had almost any ties to political organizations.

But Ellis Jacobs of the Miami Valley Voter Protection Coalition said that statistic is misleading, because those 7 million are children who are not yet of voting age and people who have failed to vote in two of the last three general elections.

Voters First spokesman Ian Nickey said the current system eliminates all 11 million Ohioans, except for politicians.

“There are maybe several thousand individuals who would be restricted from serving on the commission because they are politicians, lobbyists or political party officials,” Jacobs said.

“We think it’s a good thing to keep people like that off a commission like this.”