Federal choose approves GOP-drawn voting maps in Georgia | EUROtoday

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A federal choose has authorized Georgia’s Republican-drafted congressional map, rejecting arguments from voting rights teams that the newly drawn boundaries illegally dilute the voting energy of minority voters within the state.

The ruling from Barack Obama-appointed US District Judge Steve C Jones on Thursday marks a victory for GOP lawmakers who had been ordered to redraw the boundaries for the state’s congressional and state legislative districts that violated the Voting Rights Act.

Judge Jones’ determination on 26 October ordered the creation of 1 new congressional district with a majority-Black voting inhabitants, in addition to two new majority-Black state senate districts and 5 new majority-Black state House districts.

But the brand new maps added one majority-Black congressional district west of Atlanta and dissolved a close-by district – at the moment represented by Democratic US Rep Lucy McBath – composed largely of minority voters, who’re prone to lean Democratic.

Opponents argued that the revised map violated the choose’s earlier ruling, and mentioned that the state’s GOP-controlled state legislature couldn’t treatment the difficulty on the expense of “eliminating minority districts elsewhere” and thereby diluting their electoral energy.

Judge Jones wrote that state lawmakers “fully complied with this court’s order requiring the creation of a majority-Black congressional district in the region of the state where vote dilution was found.”

The choose’s determination seemingly ensures that Republicans will keep a 9-5 benefit among the many state’s 14 seats within the US House of Representatives, as lawsuits difficult electoral maps in a number of states may decide the stability of energy in Congress after November 2024 elections.

Democratic House candidates would want to seize a internet of 5 Republican seats nationally to win again a House majority. Ms McBath will seemingly transfer districts in an effort to retain her seat in Congress in 2024.

A assertion from Georgia’s Senate Democrats mentioned that whereas they respect the choose’s determination, the state’s Republican-drawn maps “are an ongoing Voting Rights Act violation. Period.”

Democratic officers known as for an finish to “the cycle of partisan gerrymandering that allows politicians to choose their voters and prevents voters from choosing their representatives.”

Similar challenges to state-drawn congressional maps are underway throughout the US.

Federal courts repeatedly struck down GOP-led makes an attempt to redraw its congressional districts after the US Supreme Court discovered {that a} earlier try discriminated towards the state’s Black voters. In Wisconsin this month, the state’s Supreme Court ordered new legislative maps forward of 2024 elections, pointing to unconstitutional GOP-drafted boundaries. Other main instances are pending in Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, Utah and elsewhere.