How Much Do You Know about Redistricting?

On behalf of the League of Women Voters of Alaska, the Alaska Black Caucus, and the Alaska Public Interest Research Group, the ACLU Voting Rights Project, the ACLU of Alaska, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center have filed a lawsuit against the Lieutenant Governor of Alaska and the Director of Alaska’s Division of Elections over the state’s compliance with the U.S. Department of Justice’s request for Alaska’s full, unredacted voter file. The Department of Justice demanded the complete voter record, which includes voters’ sensitive personal data, such as drivers’ license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court yesterday vacated Alabama’s current court-ordered congressional map, despite the fact that voting has already begun in the state’s May 19 primary election. The Supreme Court’s order creates a path for Alabama to reinstate a 2023 map that a district court ruled was unconstitutional and intentionally discriminatory. The case was returned to the district court for it to reexamine its prior decision in light of the devastating and profoundly flawed ruling in Louisiana v. Callais in which the court eviscerated much of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Therefore, the plaintiffs in Milligan v. Allen returned to the district court yesterday to ask for a temporary restraining order to keep the current court-ordered map in place on the claim Callais left untouched: the court’s finding that Alabama intentionally discriminated against Black voters when it drew the 2023 map. Plaintiffs are asking the court to keep the current court-ordered map because people are already voting under it. In 2021, Milligan plaintiffs challenged a 2021 Alabama congressional map that unlawfully diluted Black political power. In 2023, the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s ruling striking down the 2021 map. That same year, the Alabama Legislature drew another map. After weeks of trial, the district court ruled that Alabama’s 2023 map had a discriminatory result in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and that the Legislature had intentionally discriminated against Black voters in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The court struck down the 2023 map and ordered the use of Alabama’s current court-drawn congressional map. This map was used in the 2024 election, and voters have already cast ballots with it in Alabama’s ongoing 2026 primary elections. The Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday temporarily removes the current court-ordered congressional map and comes on the heels of Callais, which gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and struck down a remedial map with two majority-Black districts enacted by the Louisiana Legislature. But Callais did not involve a constitutional intentional discrimination claim and the court’s ruling did not affect claims of intentional discrimination — the separate, independent ground on which the district court struck down Alabama's 2023 map. That finding in the Alabama case remains wholly untouched. The plaintiffs in the Milligan case are Evan Milligan, Khadidah Stone, Letetia Jackson, Shalela Dowdy, Greater Birmingham Ministries, and the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, who are represented by the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Alabama, Hogan Lovells LLP, and Wiggins, Childs, Pantazis, Fisher & Goldfarb. In response to yesterday’s order, plaintiffs and counsel issued the following statement: “The Supreme Court’s action is the latest in a pattern of decisions that undermine the rights of Black voters. The court’s decision is designed to entrench power in the hands of the few at the expense of Black voters who have been denied equal rights at every turn. It also flies in the face of the decision it issued in this case less than three years ago. This order is also contrary to longstanding precedent that has, until yesterday, forbidden changing the rules too close to an election. With voting already underway, the court has created chaos for Alabama election officials and voters. “In 2023, the Alabama Legislature intentionally sought to deny Black voters fair representation in government. Permitting Alabama to use, for the very first time, the 2023 map in elections when voters have already legally cast ballots is an affront to the very ideals of democracy. The Supreme Court’s order rushes to displace the remedial map approved by the district court, and paves the way for Alabama to implement an extreme gerrymandered map that violates the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. “We have already returned to court to reinstate the court-ordered map, and we will keep fighting on every front to protect the rights of Black voters in Alabama.” The TRO filing is here.

The Supreme Court recently made a ruling that blows open the door for states and localities to create discriminatory voting maps. Here’s what you need to know about redistricting and voting rights in light of this decision.

The American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Tennessee filed a federal lawsuit on May 11, 2026, challenging Tennessee’s discriminatory new congressional redistricting map.