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Federal court blocks new Republican-friendly voting map in Alabama (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/politics@sh.itjust.works
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Alabama cannot use a new Republican-friendly map in this year’s midterm elections because it was drawn to intentionally discriminate against Black voters, a panel of three federal judges ruled on Tuesday.

The decision blocks Alabama from using a congressional map lawmakers passed in 2023 but never went into effect because the same court found it was drawn with intent to discriminate. Alabama was eventually ordered to adopt a map with two majority-Black districts that both elected Democrats. After the US supreme court gutted a major provision of the Voting Rights Act in a case called Louisiana v Callais in April, Alabama took the extraordinary step of moving its imminent congressional primary and sought to use the 2023 congressional map this year.

The state will probably appeal to the US supreme court.

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[–] 7 points 5 months ago (1 child)

I can’t believe I’m saying this but balkanization is starting to look kinda tempting these days.

I’m not sure we can realistically come back from this SCOTUS slaughtering the voting rights act; voting doesn’t mean shit when the ruling minority gerrymanders the maps to guarantee their wins

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    The flip side of gerrymandering is that it only works if their vote prediction model is accurate and almost every election there are races that defied the poll predictions.

    In most places they are using districts with excess votes to inflate their votes in other districts. This thins the margins and makes it so that unexpected swings in voting can cause them to lose more districts due to the thinner margins.

    Gerrymandering should be eliminated but it isn't a silver bullet or automatic win. Voting is still the most important thing and this midterm is unlikely to be represented by historical polling data... so the gerrymandering could backfire spectacularly.

    If the progressives can dominate the Democrat Party and also control the House and the Senate they have the power to remove justices (and the president), expand the courts, fix voting issues, outlaw gerrymandering, etc.

    I'm cynical about it happening, given the history of ineffective Liberals, but the Congress has all of the actual important structural powers in our democracy and if its power is wielded like Trump is wielding the Executive branch's powers then major changes could happen very rapidly.

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