Supreme Court HALTS Election In Georgia

Some major news has occurred in the peach state.

The United States Supreme Court has just halted an election in the state of Georgia after a lawsuit claimed the state has purposely harmed black voters.

The lawsuit began when a group of black leaders sued the state for the Republican-controlled General Assembly approving a new redistricting plan.

The suit would go on to say the new redistricting plan dilutes the black vote and make their votes not count.

The Supreme Court temporarily halts Georgia election.https://t.co/a8nW5RE6T3

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) August 21, 2022

This is a big deal.https://t.co/KaCLejj0lX

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) September 20, 2022

The Conservative Brief dropped these details:

The U.S. Supreme Court stepped in on a case involving a Georgia election law that is alleged to harm black voters.

The nation’s highest court temporarily stopped an election in Georgia, reviving the ruling from a federal judge that said the state had disadvantaged black voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

“In an unsigned order without noted dissents, the justices wrote that an appeals court’s reason for staying the judge’s ruling — that it had come too close to the election in November — was flawed because state officials had told the judge that there was enough time to make the required adjustments. The Supreme Court vacated the stay and returned the case to the appeals court for reconsideration,” the New York Times reported.

“The court’s order was an exception to what legal experts say is a growing trend: a near-categorical ban on late changes to state election procedures even when those changes have been ruled necessary to address illegal infringements of the right to vote. But the exception was based on an unusual concession from state officials and therefore may not have larger implications,” the Times report added.

The case began when a group of Black leaders sued the state, claiming the Republican-controlled General Assembly approved a redistricting plan last year that dilutes the Black vote in two of the five PSC districts.

Huge decision.https://t.co/uqjV1fRHiK

— Chuck Woolery (@chuckwoolery) September 20, 2022

The Guardian got the scoop too:

SIGN THE PETITION: We Need National Voter ID!

Black voters challenging Georgia’s method of electing members to the state’s public service commission scored a preliminary US supreme court order in their favor late Friday.

The decision came after conflicting rulings from lower courts earlier this month, offering up a rare example of the supreme court’s 6-3 conservative majority’s siding with voters over state officials.

Earlier this month, a federal district judge found that the current system gave Black residents’ votes less weight. Each of the commission’s five seats hold jurisdiction over a specific district, but each seatholder is elected in a statewide race that dilutes Black voters’ power, said that ruling, which came from Trump White House-appointed judge Steven Grimberg.

Grimberg ordered the postponement of a November election for two commissioners’ seats to allow the state legislature the time to create a new system for electing commissioners, granting a request from a group of voters challenging the system.

However, last week, the federal 11th circuit court of appeals temporarily halted Grimberg’s ruling, citing the “Purcell principle”, which discourages courts from changing election rules immediately before an election.

The supreme court on Friday reinstated the Grimberg ruling, with the plaintiffs citing testimony from numerous experts who found the current Georgia public service commission election system to be discriminatory against Black voters.