A federal three-judge panel is again ordering the State Board of Election Commissioners to redraw state senate districts in northeast Mississippi to allow fair opportunity for Black voters to elect preferred candidates.
The panel ordered the state to redraw 10 Senate voting districts and five House districts in response to a 2022 NAACP lawsuit that alleged voting power for the black voting age population (BVAP) was diluted in Mississippi due to gerrymandered district lines.
A primary aim of the redrawn lines was to increase Black-majority districts in a way that more accurately reflects the state’s 38% Black population. Before reorganization measures were passed by both the state Senate and House, 29% of Senate districts and 34% of House districts were majority Black.
Many Black leaders in the state celebrated the 2024 ruling but were dissatisfied with two of the three voting maps passed by the legislature in the 2025 regular session. The Mississippi NAACP accepted redrawn Districts 34, 41, 42, 44, and 45 in the Hattiesburg area, but challenged the new maps in DeSoto and Chickasaw counties.
“Black voters still have less opportunity to elect candidates of choice to the Senate and House, respectively, as compared to white voters,” said ACLU attorney Ari Savitzky, who represents the Mississippi NAACP in the case, one week before the latest order. “The opportunities they create are illusory.”
The panel of judges accepted the redrawn House Districts 16, 22, 36, 39, and 41 in Chickasaw County, but upheld the plaintiffs’ appeal that the new map in DeSoto County, redrawing Senate Districts 1, 2, 10, 11, and 19, was not satisfactory.
In previous hearings, the panel cited a lack of precedent for what exactly delineates equal opportunity for Black voters. A crowd of Republican lawmakers has decried the line of decisions, specifically in DeSoto County, arguing that districts should not be drawn to guarantee the election of Black Democrats, but rather that maps should provide equal opportunity.
But for the new DeSoto County voting map, the panel sided with the Mississippi NAACP’s argument that even though the changed districts became majority Black when they previously weren’t, “effective opportunity” that took socioeconomic, voting history, and prior election result factors into account was not established.
The State Board of Election Commissioners was given seven days to propose a new map for the districts in DeSoto County that are more favorable for Black voters.
The panel admitted that the timeline was “tight” for a slew of special elections that will be required for newly drawn districts, but noted they are still committed to carrying out the 15 elections.
The House and Senate legislation mark May 19 as the start of the qualifying period for the elections, with primary elections set for August 5 ahead of the general election on November 4.
