Appeals Court Lifts Block on Georgia’s 2021 Election Maps

An appeals court on Aug. 25 overturned a lower court block on Georgia’s 2021 state and congressional election maps.

The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit said its decision was motivated by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling from April, which made it tougher to use Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to compel states to consider race as a primary factor when drawing congressional maps.

Supreme Court precedent has allowed states to draw maps that give an advantage to one political party or the other.

The recent decision means any challenge to a new map that “fails to disentangle race and partisan goals wrongly intrudes on a state’s prerogative” and cannot be overturned using the Voting Rights Act, the court said. 

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones ordered Georgia in 2023 to redraw its congressional and state legislature maps on the grounds that the previous maps diluted minority voting power. 

Tuesday’s ruling vacated that decision and sends the case back to the district court for reconsideration.

This is a developing story and will be updated.