Jockeying for position among voting districts has become a legal mess over the years. Each major party can be credited with filing lawsuits that challenge state decisions for dividing up the districts.

At stake are changes that could impact the results of national elections. Joe Biden won by slim margins in key states to gain enough electoral votes. Any major changes within state voting boundaries could sway national election votes against the next Republican presidential nominee.

One big fight over voter districts has been waged in Georgia. A lawsuit challenged how the Republican-controlled General Assembly in the state redrew congressional maps under order of a federal court.

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones, appointed by former President Barack Obama, recently handed down his decision that scored a big win for the GOP in upcoming elections.

From The Daily Wire:
“The court finds that the general assembly fully complied with this court’s order requiring the creation of Black-majority districts in the regions of the state where vote dilution was found,” Jones wrote in his order.

The decision provides momentum that Republicans could maintain a 9-5 advantage among Georgia’s 14 seats allotted in the U.S. House of Representatives. A Republican win in the 2024 presidential race would net 16 electoral votes from Georgia.

The congressional maps ruling stems from a decision from Jones earlier this year that many state and Congressional districts created in 2021 violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and discriminated against black voters. He ordered new maps to be drawn that included an additional majority-black Congressional district, two additional majority-black state Senate districts, and five new majority-black districts in the state House.

State lawmakers appealed the decision while also holding a special session to redraw the congressional maps. The judge found the new maps complied with his order.

The Georgia ruling was prompted by a U.S. Supreme Court over the summer. Justices issued a surprising 5-4 ruling that determined an Alabama Congressional map was discriminatory. The three liberal justices in that case were joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow conservative Brett Kavanaugh in the majority.

The decision forced the Alabama state legislature to redraw a Congressional map to add an additional black-majority district that complied with the Voting Rights Act. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett dissented.

Thomas decried the ruling in his dissent against the surprising decision.

“At the outset, I would resolve these cases in a way that would not require the Federal Judiciary to decide the correct racial apportionment of Alabama’s congressional seats,” he wrote.

Key Takeaways:

• A federal judge ruled that Georgia lawmakers complied with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
• The judge had ordered the Republican-controlled legislature to rework voting maps.
• The decision sets the stage for the Georgia GOP to hold onto U.S. House seats.

Source: The Daily Wire