Overview
- A federal three-judge panel, which ruled Tuesday, May 26, 2026, issued a preliminary injunction preventing Alabama from switching to its 2023 Republican-drawn congressional map and ordered the state to keep using the court-approved 2024 map.
- The judges found the 2023 plan intentionally discriminated on the basis of race and wrote that the state could not require voters to cast ballots under a map “tainted by intentional race-based discrimination.”
- Alabama officials said they will immediately appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court while the state’s governor had already scheduled special primaries for four altered districts and the legislative fiscal office estimated an added cost of about $4.45 million for an August election.
- In South Carolina, Republican senators joined Democrats to block a last‑minute redraw that would have targeted Jim Clyburn’s district, a move that stopped that legislature’s effort while early voting was already underway for a scheduled June primary.
- Both actions trace to the Supreme Court’s April decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which narrowed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and spurred GOP-led mid‑decade redraws that have produced rushed timelines, court fights, voter reassignments, compressed filing windows, and questions about who controls the House.