JACKSON, Madam. — Mississippi must act quickly to court ordered re-drawing of some voting districts to ensure fairer representation of Black residents, attorneys for voting rights groups said in a new court document filed Friday.
The attorneys also said it is important to hold special elections in the new state House of Representatives and Senate Districts on November 5, the same day as general elections for federal offices and some state judicial positions.
Holding a special legislative election in 2025 “would be a burden on election administrators and voters and would likely result in low turnout, if not outright confusion,” attorneys for the Mississippi NAACP and several Black residents wrote in a court case in which the composition of the constituencies for the House of Representatives and the Senate in 2022 is discussed.
Lawyers for the all-Republican state Board of Electoral Commissioners said in court papers filed Wednesday that it is impossible to redraw some precincts before the November election because of tight deadlines for preparing ballots.
Three federal judges on July 2 ordered Mississippi lawmakers to redraw some districts, saying the current districts dilute the power of black voters in three parts of the state. The judges said they want the new districts drawn before the next regular legislative session begins in January.
In 2023, Mississippi will hold elections for the House of Representatives and the Senate. By redrawing some districts, special elections would have to be held to fill the seats for the remainder of the four-year term.
The justices ordered lawmakers to create majority-black Senate districts in and around DeSoto County in the northwestern corner of the state and in and around Hattiesburg in the south. They also had to create a new majority-black House district in Chickasaw and Monroe Counties in the northeastern part of the state.
The order does not create additional districts. Instead, it requires lawmakers to adjust the boundaries of existing districts. Multiple districts could be affected.
Legislative and congressional districts are updated after each census to reflect population changes over the previous decade. Mississippi’s population is about 59% white and 38% black.
In the legislative redistricting plan passed in 2022 and used in the 2023 elections, 15 of the 52 Senate districts and 42 of the 122 House districts are majority Black. That’s 29% of the Senate districts and 34% of the House districts.
Historical voting patterns in Mississippi show that districts with large white populations tend to lean Republican, while districts with large black populations tend to lean Democratic.
In several states, lawsuits have been filed challenging the composition of Congress or state legislative districts established after the 2020 Census.