NRF Statement on Georgia Federal Court Ruling to Allow Elections to Proceed Under Unlawful Maps

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Jena Doyle 
doyle@redistrictingfoundation.org

NRF Statement on Georgia Federal Court Ruling to Allow Elections to Proceed Under Unlawful Maps

Washington, D.C. — After a Georgia federal court ruled that the state’s newly drawn political maps will remain in place for the 2022 elections, Marina Jenkins, Director of Policy and Litigation at the National Redistricting Foundation, released the following statement: 

“Today’s court decision allowing Georgia’s 2022 congressional and state legislative elections to move forward under maps that clearly dilute the voice, and blunt the power, of the voters is supremely disappointing. The choice to weigh fidelity to an administrative election timeline over equal voting rights for Black voters is simply not the right choice. But the battle for electoral fairness in Georgia continues, and we will not rest until fair maps are put into place ensuring all voters have an equal opportunity to elect representatives of their choosing.” 

With the support of the National Redistricting Foundation (NRF) a group of individual voters challenged the state’s congressional and state legislative district plans. The lawsuits, Pendergrass v. Raffensperger and Grant v. Raffensperger, allege that the new district plans violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) because they dilute the voting strength of Black Georgians and deny those voters an equal opportunity to participate in the political process. The cases were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division. 

The Court found that the plaintiffs were “likely to ultimately prove that certain aspects of the State’s redistricting plans are unlawful” and were likely to succeed on the merits of the case. Specifically, the Court credited the plaintiffs for proving the ability to create additional Black majority districts and satisfying the burden to prove racial polarized voting. Furthermore the Court credited the plaintiff’s witnesses as “highly credible” and held that plaintiffs had met their burden of persuasion.” Nevertheless, the court ultimately denied the plaintiffs’ request to block the maps from being used this cycle, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent stay of injunctive relief achieved by NRF-supported litigants in a similar case out of Alabama.

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