Recent Supreme Court Ruling Challenges the Voting Rights Act

Recently, the Supreme Court decided that many view as undermining the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Several states begin redrawing their voting districts in a way that might be less fair to all voters. Here, Election Central takes a closer look at this new ruling and how it might impact the upcoming 2026 midterm elections. 

What Is the Voting Rights Act? 

The Voting Rights Act was passed during the 1960s civil rights movement in the United States. The law’s intent was to ensure that all states follow the Fifteenth Amendment’s guarantee that people’s right to vote can’t be limited because of their race. Before the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, several states had rules in place that denied or limited African American citizen’s right to vote. These state and local rules included poll taxes and literacy tests. (Poll taxes required a payment to cast a vote. Literacy tests required citizens to pass a test before being allowed to vote. These restrictions were intentionally created to target the poor and the less educated—which at that time in the 1960s was disproportionately people of color.) In addition to banning these practices, the Voting Rights Act also made it so that states couldn’t give one group or party an unfair advantage over another through techniques such as gerrymandering. 

What is Gerrymandering? 

Gerrymandering is a method used by both political parties to give their party a better chance of winning an election. Every state in the U.S. has several voting districts. Following the regularly scheduled ten-year census, states may be required to change their congressional districts if the change in the state’s population increases or decreases and changes that state’s required number of representatives  Political parties frequently re-draw the maps of those voting districts to give their party an unfair advantage.  

This advantage can be designed in two ways. The first is “packing,” which puts many of the opposing party’s voters together into a single district. That way, the opponent will have a majority advantage in only that district and face a greater challenge of winning in other districts.  

The second method is “cracking,” where the opposing party’s voters are spread across many districts to keep them from having a majority anywhere. In both cases, this might result in one party winning an election even though they haven’t won the majority of votes.  

What Does the New Court Ruling Say? 

Often, voters of color have challenged their states for unlawful gerrymandering that puts them at a disadvantage, based on the Voting Rights Act. But the Supreme Court’s recent decision has changed that. The Court ruled that the state of Louisiana could not create a second majority-minority district (meaning a district where a minority group has the majority). The Court said that creating this second district gave minority groups an unfair advantage over white voters in the state. 

It is now more difficult for voters of color to challenge redistricting efforts that put them at a disadvantage. Since 1965, voting redistricting maps have been considered unconstitutional if they had the effect of racial discrimination, even if it wasn’t intentional. Now, anyone who challenges a redistricting map would need to prove that there was intentional racial discrimination, which is hard to do.   

What Will the Impact Be? 

Several states have already kicked off an effort to draw new maps in advance of the upcoming 2026 midterm elections. Most of these change efforts are being driven by Republican majorities in state legislatures. Republican-led Louisiana has confirmed that it will immediately start redrawing its maps. In Florida, a new voting map signed by Governor De Santis would create four additional Republican-majority districts and could result in four more Republican Representatives in the U.S. House. Tennessee is considering redistricting in a way that might eliminate the state’s only Democratic congressperson. Republican-led Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama are considering redistricting efforts as well.  

However, this may be tricky, as in several states (such as Louisiana), early primary voting has already begun or is about to begin. Absentee and military ballots have already been mailed out. Changing voting districts requires that voters in affected districts would need to be properly identified and coded. Voting rights groups are urging the Supreme Court to delay putting these changes into effect to avoid widespread confusion among voters. 

Dig Deeper Gerrymandering was named for Elbridge Gerry, one of the country’s founders and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. But why? Use Internet resources to learn more. Write a short paragraph about what you find.