Associated Press

Note: This story has been updated. An earlier version incorrectly said the Democrats received slightly more votes in Statehouse races. The GOP received 50.3 percent.

CLEVELAND, Ohio - As Ohio Republicans won the race for every statewide executive job from the governor on down this year, something different happened in lower-profile races.

The Democrats ran much more competitive in total votes for the 116 Ohio House and Senate elections across the state, cleveland.com found in tabulating the unofficial returns.

It's a takeaway from Election 2018 that isn't the usual headline grabber. More importantly, in terms of controlling Ohio's government, the GOP won 73 of the 116 Statehouse races.

But the Republicans scored their wins for 63 percent of the seats while collecting just over 50 percent of the total vote.

This is a lot like what happened in Ohio's 16 congressional districts, where Republicans won 75 percent of the seats with just 52 percent of the overall vote.

These are two fresh examples of how skillfully gerrymandered legislative districts can sway the balance of power - especially when one party is in full control of drawing the maps as was the case for the current districts.

The next set of maps will be different to at least some extent.

Scroll below to learn how gerrymandering affected the results of the 2018 election, what the future may hold under reform already approved by Ohio voters, and if change could actually occur before the next state and federal elections in 2020.

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Votes for reform

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Kathleen Atwater of Vermilion, displaying the map she created to show the far-reaching 9th congressional district, testifies during a gerrymandering hearing in Columbus in 2017. (Ohio Channel)

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Ohioans in 2015 voted to reform the way Statehouse districts will be drawn, beginning in 2021. Then, earlier this year, Ohio voters did the same for congressional districts going forward. The votes for change were not close, passing each time with more than 70 percent support.

The separate reforms carry their own set of rules, but the gist is the same - a new set of 10-year maps cannot be approved without buy-in from both major political parties.

"The problem with gerrymandering is so straight forward and clear cut if you just look at the numbers" from the election returns, said Catherine Turcer, one of the advocates for change as the executive director of Common Cause Ohio.

"I'm so pleased that the voters of Ohio have taken the step to rein in the problem. We deserve to be in control of the elections."

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How will reform work?

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Ohio Statehouse (Rich Exner, cleveland.com)

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For Statehouse districts, a seven-member panel will be established to handle the process in 2021. This panel will consist of the governor, auditor and secretary of state (all Republicans as determined by this year's election), plus two Republicans and two Democrats appointed by party leaders in the Statehouse.

A map must win approval from the two Democrats on this panel, or it will be good for only four years, not 10 years.

For the new congressional maps, the new rules are also geared toward bipartisanship:

The legislature is to try to pass a map, with at least 50 percent support from members of each of the two major political parties.

If that fails, a separate, seven-member commission similar to that being used for the Statehouse map could attempt to approve a congressional map. But the commission cannot approve a new map without at least two votes from each party.

If that fails, the legislature could then approve a map by majority vote, but only if at least one-third of the members of the minority party in the Ohio House and Ohio Senate (currently the Democrats) vote yes.

Only if each of the first three steps fail could the majority party pass a map without minority support. But that map would have to pass additional anti-gerrymandering tests and it would be good for just four years, not the usual 10 years.

Plus, there are a lot of new restrictions placing limits on how the districts can be drawn, the goal being fewer splits of communities and geographically compact districts.

In each case, a calculation will have be made by the Republicans in charge: Is it worth pushing through a more favorable map without the Democrats buying in, if the map is only good for four years?

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How about the 2020 election?

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Ohio's existing 4th congressional district (Rich Exner, cleveland.com)

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On the congressional side, there is a lawsuit in federal court, brought by the Ohio League of Women Voters and others, that aims to force the drawing of a new map for the 2020 election.

The trial is scheduled for March. A proposed new map was submitted to the court earlier this fall.

There is hope for those who filed the lawsuit, which is being handled by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. Just last week in Maryland, a three-judge panel in federal court unanimously ordered a new Maryland congressional map in time for the 2020 election.

That case was the result of Republicans complaining about the work of Democrats in drawing the existing Maryland congressional map.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take on a gerrymandering case out of Virginia. The appeal was filed by Republicans after a lower court ruled districts needed to be redrawn because of racial gerrymandering.

As for Ohio's Statehouse map, there is no pending litigation that could alter the map for 2020.

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Ohio's 2018 Statehouse elections

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Combined results for all Ohio House and Senate races. Source: Ohio Secretary of State (Rich Exner, cleveland.com)

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According to the unofficial results, Republicans received 50.3 percent of the votes statewide in the 116 races - 3,165,811 to 3,098,015 over the Democrats. Another 26,432 votes went to other candidates.

Half of Ohio's Senate seats were on the ballot. Republicans won 65 percent of the seats (11 of 17) with just 48 percent of the statewide vote.

All 99 Ohio House seats are on the ballot every two years. In Ohio House races, the Republicans won 63 percent of the seats (62 of 99) with 52 percent of the vote.

Some of the Democratic advantage in the overall vote totals was built up because Republicans didn't field candidates in nine races. Uncontested races sometimes are the result of severe gerrymandering, or simply geography, where one party or the other has little hope of winning.

Without gerrymandering, the GOP likely could still win more seats than its share of the vote - because of the compact nature of where many Democrats live - but not to the extent of the results produced by the well-documented plan to gerrymander Ohio to the Republicans' advantage. Elsewhere, such as in Maryland, Democrats have been accused of doing the same to their advantage.

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Ohio's 2018 congressional elections

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Ohio's congressional districts were gerrymandered to squeeze as many likely Democratic voters as possible into four districts and spread Republican voters out among 12 districts. Election results source: Ohio Secretary of State (Rich Exner, cleveland.com)

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As reported the morning after the election by cleveland.com, the congressional map designed by Republicans in 2011 to produce 12 solidly Republican districts and four for the Democrats worked to perfection again - with exactly that result for the fourth straight election.

This was done by packing as many Democrats as possible into four districts - one stretching from Cleveland to Toledo - and spreading Republican strength out among the other 12 districts.

The unofficial tally shows that the Republicans won 75 percent of Ohio's congressional seats (12 of 16) with just 52 percent of the vote statewide in the races combined.

Democrats carried the vote in the four districts they won by a combined 71 percent to 29 percent head-to-head, and the GOP won its 12 races by a combined 59 percent to 40 percent.

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So was there a shift toward Blue in Ohio?

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Members of the freshman class of congress pose for a photo on Wednesday. (AP)

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The GOP's statewide domination is undisputed. The governor, auditor, secretary of state, treasurer and attorney general will all again be Republicans.

The lone Democratic win statewide was by Sen. Sherrod Brown, a veteran elected to a third term. The Democrats also did win two seats on the Ohio Supreme Court, but the ballot does not identify party affiliation in the Supreme Court races.

Despite the strong showing by the Ohio GOP, the Democrats actually did make significant gains over 2016, argues Richard Gunther, who worked on gerrymandering reform and is a professor emeritus of political science at Ohio State University.

He found the vote margin between Democrats and Republicans in Ohio's congressional races shifted the Democrats' way by an average of 10 percentage points. That was in line, he said, with national trends.

"Ohio did not miss out on the wave at all," Gunther said. "The difference is that gerrymandering was so effective that the Democrats picked up no additional seats."

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National results

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Sources: Federal Elections Commission for 2016; New York Times for 2018 (Rich Exner, cleveland.com)

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Sometimes, it's not gerrymandering; it's geography.

In the U.S. Senate, there is no gerrymandering because all the elections are statewide.

Yet the Republicans picked up one to three seats in the midterm elections with just 41 percent of the vote, losing to the Democrats - 34.4 million to 48.9 million, according to the latest tabulations by the New York Times.

Wins in smaller states by Republicans helped create this imbalance. Only one-third of the Senate is elected every two years.

In the U.S. House races nationwide, Democrats are outpolling Republicans, 54.1 million to 48.7 million (52 percent to 47 percent). This has led to the Democrats winning 54 percent of the races decided so far, with eight seats still considered undecided.

In 2016, the GOP maintained a solid majority in Congress while just edging Democrats in the overall vote.

In that election, Republicans won 55 percent of the congressional seats (241 of 435) with 48 percent of the overall vote to the Democrats' 47 percent - 63.4 million to 62.3 million. Some 4.3 million votes were cast for other candidates.

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Rich Exner, data analysis editor for cleveland.com, writes about numbers on a variety of topics. Follow on Twitter @RichExner.

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Related - A potential good congressional map from Gerrymandering reform

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The existing congressional map is on the left. The un-gerrymandered map on the right was created by cleveland.com in an attempt to show what could be a "good" map using the new rules being put in place in 2021. (Rich Exner, cleveland.com)

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A congressional district map that makes geographic sense. Political balance in line with Ohio's leanings. Competitive races so voters can hold politicians accountable. It's possible under gerrymandering reform approved overwhelmingly by Ohio votes in May.

See this example of a "good" map created by cleveland.com, using the new rules.

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Related - A potential bad congressional map from Gerrymandering reform

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The existing congressional map is on the left. The map at right was drawn trying to create a "bad" map under the new rules, showing even an improvement in this scenario. (Rich Exner, cleveland.com)

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The changes approved in May limit the extent to which congressional districts could be gerrymandered in the future in Ohio, but still leaves open the door for some mischievous map drawing.

See this "bad" map created by cleveland.com, following the new rules.