Supreme Court Allows Alabama to Use Congressional Map Found to Violate Voting Rights Act

The Supreme Court issued an unsigned order allowing Alabama to use its preferred congressional map for upcoming elections, overriding a lower court ruling that found the map intentionally discriminated against Black voters. The three-judge panel had determined that Alabama’s 2023 map packed Black voters into one district and dispersed the rest, leaving only one of seven districts likely to elect a Black representative despite Black residents comprising more than a quarter of the state’s population.

The panel, which included two judges appointed by President Donald Trump, ordered Alabama to create a second majority-Black district.

Alabama first drew the disputed map after the 2020 census. The lower court rejected an earlier version in 2023, appointed special experts, and oversaw a map used in the 2024 election that produced two Black members of Congress. It noted that states may decide for themselves whether to make last-minute election changes.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented. She wrote that the order would force officials to change voter registrations for hundreds of thousands of voters days before the primary and would reward Alabama’s defiance of prior court orders.

The Court’s decision follows its April ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which narrowed the standards for proving Voting Rights Act violations in redistricting cases.