lpetrich
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A court caught Republicans discriminating against Black voters – here’s how | Alabama | The Guardian
Alabama’s New Electoral Lines are Racially Gerrymandered — Here’s Why
Supreme Court could act soon on Alabama racial gerrymandering dispute | TheHill
Then showing how it happens. The current map has one black-majority district, in the western part of the state, but in the eastern part, the black population is divided among two districts.Under the new districts, Black people make up 25% of the Alabama’s population, but comprise a majority in just one of the state’s seven districts.
In late January, a panel of three federal judges issued a 225-page opinion explaining how the state was discriminating against Black voters.
“Black voters have less opportunity than other Alabamians to elect candidates of their choice to Congress,” the panel wrote. The judges gave Alabama 14 days to come up with a new plan and said the state had to draw two districts where Black voters comprise a majority.
Alabama’s New Electoral Lines are Racially Gerrymandered — Here’s Why
Supreme Court could act soon on Alabama racial gerrymandering dispute | TheHill
The central question is whether the mismatch between Alabama’s Black population and its disproportionately low representation in the U.S. House violates the law. Despite Black Alabamians accounting for around 27 percent of the state’s population, the voting map drawn by the GOP-held legislature following the 2020 census gives Black voters control of only 14 percent of the state’s congressional delegation, or one in seven Alabama seats in the U.S House.
Challengers to the new map brought suits in federal court alleging that the new voting districts reflected “a decades long pattern of the white-controlled Alabama Legislature” drawing maps that “discriminate against Black voters to maintain power” in violation of federal law and constitutional protections.