One week after a panel of federal judges ordered Mississippi’s Board of Election Commissioners to redraw state senate districts in DeSoto County, the state has offered a new proposal.
On Tuesday, the board, comprised of Republicans Gov. Tate Reeves, Attorney General Lynn Fitch, and Secretary of State Michael Watson, submitted a new plan. The latest proposal aims to remedy concerns espoused by the NAACP in a lawsuit accusing the state of diluting Black voting power in Mississippi. Reeves and Watson voted in favor of the motion. An attorney representing the Attorney General’s Office dissented.
This comes after a panel consisting of U.S. Fifth Circuit Judge Leslie Southwick, U.S. District Judge Sul Ozerden, and U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan ordered the state to redraw 10 Senate voting districts and five House districts in response to litigation filed by the NAACP in 2022.
The suit alleged that the 2022 redistricting by the legislature diminished the voting power of the state’s Black population, with 29% of Senate districts and 34% of House districts being majority Black. The state made concessions, and new lines were drawn. Redistricting plans in the Hattiesburg area were approved by the NAACP, but new lines drawn in DeSoto and Chickasaw counties were disputed.
However, the panel of judges approved the Chickasaw plans and instructed the state to redraw lines in northwest Mississippi, where DeSoto County lies. The state’s new proposal makes Senate District 2 a majority-minority district, meaning more than 50% of its voting base is not white, and lowers the Black voting base in Senate District 11 while keeping it a majority-minority district.
The State Board of Election Commissioners, however, anticipates the NAACP to dispute the plan because it does not guarantee certain specific outcomes in future elections. The plaintiffs in the suit are looking to ensure Black voters would elect a candidate of choice in the areas, whereas the state is looking to afford the opportunity, not the outcome.
“Plaintiffs will likely object to SD 2’s performance metrics by noting that the district fails to perform in the 2019 statewide elections or, potentially, in their stale elections pre-2019. But this is now the second map (including the Senate remedial map) submitted to the Court that shows a clear shift and trend toward Democratic voting behavior post-2019 in the DeSoto County area,” the board wrote.
“In any event, the Plan shows strong performance numbers in every election from 2020 to now. Asking the Court to brush aside the elections since 2020 and favor older, stale elections would be further proof that the Plaintiffs want a guarantee that a black Democrat will be elected in the newly drawn majority-minority district.”
The following modified schedule for adopting new voter information, candidate qualifying periods, and election dates will go into effect if the new districts are approved.
- May 5 – Deadline to share detailed maps and address libraries with local election officials
- May 26 – Qualifying begins
- May 30 – Qualifying deadline
- June 6 – Deadline for the state executive committee to submit names of qualified candidates
- June 21 – Absentee voting begins for the primary election
- August 5 – Special primary election day
- September 2 – Special primary runoff election day
- September 20 – Absentee voting begins for general election
- November 4 – Special general election day
Per the election board’s submission, in the event the May 5 deadline cannot be met, then the deadline for each state executive committee to submit the list of qualified candidates to the Secretary of State would be moved to June 13, and all previous deadlines moved back one week, which would place the deadline to produce maps and address libraries on May 12.
The NAACP will have seven days to weigh in on the plan before the judicial panel decides whether or not to give it the green light. If the proposal falls through, the judges could redraw the districts and move forward with their modified candidate qualifying period and election schedule.
