Court blocks Alabama voting map that would help Republicans in midterms

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Court blocks Alabama voting map that would help Republicans in the midterms.

[00:00:04]Huffpost is reporting a three judge district court panel on Tuesday ruled that Alabama could not eliminate a second black opportunity congressional seat that the panel previously ordered to be drawn as the state's preferred map intentionally discriminated based on race. Ultimately, we cannot see our way clear to requiring Alamians to cast their votes in the 2026 elections under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination, the decision states. And under the unusual circumstances of this case, we conclude that a limited order requiring the secretary to continue using this court's race map will not disrupt Alabama's elections. The same district court panel required Alabama to draw a map with a second house district in 2022 that provided black voters an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice. In 2023, the Supreme Court upheld this ruling in a 5 to4 decision in Allen v. Milligan. Alabama refused to abide by this decision and the panel ordered the adoption of a map with one black majority seat and one black plurality seat. After the Supreme Court almost completely gutted the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v Cala on April 29th, it required the panel to reconsider the case given the Cala requirement that the Voting Rights Act challenges can only succeed when intentional race discrimination is found. Alabama responded by passing a bill suspending its May 19th primaries and reinstituting the map that the panel previously overturned in 2023.

[00:01:46]We reject in the strongest possible terms the state's attempt to finish its intentional decision to dilute minority voters with a veneer of legislative regularity. The panel's decision states.

[00:01:59]That's what we know for now from the Pepio newsroom. I'm David Moore.