A federal judge on Friday shot down a Republican effort to eliminate the only Black-majority judicial district in Mississippi, Democracy Docket reported.
In early July, a group of white voters filed a suit that took aim at the sole majority-Black judicial subdistrict in DeSoto County, where Black residents make up more than one-third of the population, according to Democracy Docket. U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock, a Bush appointee, ruled that the challenge came too close to the November election.
Mississippi picks some of its judges through a judicial subdistrict, according to reporting by Mississippi Today. The judicial subdistrict is a smaller slice of a larger court district, but the judge it selects hears cases from the whole district.
The voters' complaint framed the district's existence as discriminating against them and alleged the state "unlawfully diluted the voting power of white voters...for no reason other than race," Democracy Docket reported, describing it as a Republican-led effort.
The lawsuit demanded that the court toss the subdistrict and then allow all voters in the district to vote in the race or hold a special election at a later date.
"In short, the Plaintiffs have wholly failed to carry their burden," Aycock wrote. "The Court was not presented evidence to justify the requested relief."
Aycock added in her decision that the plaintiffs "cannot overcome Purcell and are entitled to no relief at this stage." According to Democracy Docket, "Purcell" refers to a Supreme Court principle asserting that courts should not change election rules too close to an election. Democracy Docket noted that the Supreme Court hasn't been consistent about upholding the principle itself, however.
"The court's decision protects DeSoto County voters from this unfounded, last-minute attempt to take away their only meaningful opportunity to participate in judicial elections," Ming Cheung, an attorney with the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, said about the decision in a statement.
