Democracy Docket:

A federal judge signed off Tuesday on the settlement agreement reached in Newbern, Alabama in Mayor Patrick Braxton’s case, officially giving him all mayoral powers and privileges after being blocked from office by the previous white town leaders. . . 

In addition to forcing Braxton’s predecessors to give him access to official documents and allow him into the town hall, which they physically locked him out of, the settlement agreement establishes that the town will hold its first election since 1965 next year . . .

Newbern, a small majority-Black town, has not had a mayoral election in almost 60 years and instead has the current mayor appoint the next mayor. 

The Hill:

A federal judge in Ohio struck down parts of Ohio’s 2023 election law changes, ruling on Monday the law violates the rights of voters with disabilities in the state. . . 

The law, which went into effect April 2023, barred anyone who is not an election official or mail carrier from possessing or returning the absentee ballot for voters with disabilities, with the exception of [qualifying] family members.

Judge Bridget Meehan Brennan, in a ruling Monday, pointed to Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, stating it allows a disabled voter “to select a person of their choice to assist them with voting,” including the return of a ballot.

The Guardian:

As 2023 comes to a close, the Voting Rights Act is facing a series of dire threats that could significantly weaken the landmark civil rights law.

A suite of three different pending cases could gut the ability of private plaintiffs to challenge the Voting Rights Act, make it harder to challenge discriminatory election systems, and limit the Voting Rights Act’s protections in areas where a single racial minority doesn’t constitute a majority.

Hansi Lo Wang on NPR: 

The landmark Voting Rights Act has had a wild year in the courts. In 2024, ongoing legal challenges are threatening to make it harder to protect the voting rights of people of color (4-minute listen).

Opinion here, and excerpt below from the Detroit News:

Lansing — Federal judges have declared 13 of Michigan’s House and Senate districts unconstitutional and ordered them redrawn, overturning a key portion of the maps drawn in 2021 by Michigan’s inaugural Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission.

The three-judge panel ordered the Secretary of State to refrain from holding elections in those districts until they are redrawn in compliance with the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. . . .

“We’re thrilled that the court unanimously ruled that the challenged districts are illegal and that Black voters in Detroit were disenfranchised,” said John Bursch, an attorney for the Black Detroiters who challenged the maps. . . .

[P]laintiffs have argued that the experts guiding the commission consistently pressured its members to lower the number of Black voters in Metro Detroit House and Senate districts out of an effort to “unpack” past districts and achieve better partisan fairness scores across the state.

The result, the plaintiffs argued, was a dilution of the Black vote across spaghetti-like districts that stretched from majority-Black Detroit into majority-White suburbs in Oakland and Macomb counties.

The Voting Rights Act requires that when there is a large, compact minority — such as the Black population in Detroit — those voters cannot be broken up into largely White districts where their votes are diluted and where they are unable to elect a minority-preferred candidate.

The Equal Protection Clause largely bars states from drawing district maps that sort voters primarily by race.

Michigan’s redistricting case is unique because, unlike processes led by the majority party of the Legislature, the citizens commission documented every decision in a transcript that runs about 10,000 pages, noted Kethledge, an appointee of Republican former President George W. Bush. That transcript is quoted continuously throughout the federal court ruling. . . .

In many cases, the commission lowered the Black voting age population between 35% and 45% for legislative districts in a city whose African American population is nearly 78%, with little to no primary data showing a Black-preferred candidate could make it through a primary with those concentrations.

Hat tip: Derek Clinger of the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School

Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones took nearly two years to issue his October order that struck down Georgia’s political maps. He’s working on a far tighter deadline to render his verdict on redrawn congressional and legislative maps.

Jones said during a Wednesday hearing that state officials informed him redistricting must be completed by Jan. 16 to be ready for next year’s voting. Later, state attorney Bryan Tyson said elections staffers need the maps by Jan. 29.

NC Newsline:

Voting rights groups in North Carolina filed a sweeping redistricting lawsuit Tuesday that claims the Republican-led legislature violated federal law by racially gerrymandering the state House, state Senate and congressional plans for election districts. 

The suit by the state NAACP, Common Cause and eight Black voters says that the election districts violate the federal Voting Rights Act and the U.S. constitutional amendments that prohibit racial discrimination.

Cleveland.com:

COLUMBUS, Ohio — In a new federal lawsuit, voting-rights groups say that a recently passed Ohio law which makes it a felony for someone other than a postal worker or a close relative to handle someone’s absentee ballot illegally discriminates against disabled people.