Callais and Its Consequences
By Marshal Trigg, Counsel, USGI
On April 29, the Supreme Court handed down its 6 to 3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, holding that the state’s 250-mile, snake-shaped 6th Congressional District—linking the populations of Shreveport, Alexandria, Lafayette, and Baton Rouge to create a second majority-minority district—amounted to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The ripple effects have been fast and wide-ranging, as are the longer-term implications for future redistricting fights.
The day after the ruling, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry suspended the May 16 U.S. House primary, and was subsequently hit with several lawsuits which are currently pending. On May 4, the Court granted the Callais plaintiffs’ request to expedite issuance of the judgment, waiving the usual 32-day waiting period and enabling the state legislature to enact a remedial map. The same day, Florida enacted its own redistricting legislation. Tennessee followed suit on May 7. On May 11, the Court lifted the federal injunction blocking Alabama from using its legislature-drawn map, and relisted for conference two pending cases on whether private litigants may sue under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. South Carolina’s House cleared a procedural step on May 6 toward a possible redraw, but then fell short by two votes in the Senate. The situation there remains fluid. Mississippi has called off any moves until 2027, and Georgia will convene a June 17 special session to draw maps for the 2028 cycle. Democratic-led states are signaling coordinated responses on the same timeline, including Maryland. All of this on top of the Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling invalidating the state’s gerrymandering referendum make for a dizzying array of redistricting activity as we enter primary season.
Callais is likely to reshape redistricting fights well into the next decade. By raising the evidentiary bar for Section 2 vote-dilution claims and drawing a sharper line between race and partisanship in map-drawing, the decision cuts into the leverage Section 2 plaintiffs have exercised under the Gingles framework that has structured these claims since 1986. Expect states under court-ordered remedial maps to push to modify or dissolve those orders. The Court’s order in Alabama this week is the first real signal. The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has indicated it will revisit districts where race predominated in line-drawing under the old Section 2 framework. And by reducing Section 2 litigation risk for legislatures, the ruling reinforces the mid-decade trend already well underway. Although congressional redistricting will get much of the attention, the ramifications extend to state legislative and local redistricting and question the viability of state-level “Voting Rights Acts” that incorporate race-based criteria, one of which has already been challenged.
The Supreme Court’s ruling arrived in the middle of an already unprecedented, combustible mid-decade redistricting cycle and poured fuel on it. The 2026 midterms will offer a first read on the consequences; 2028 and 2030 will tell the longer story.
Ballotpedia Spring Report
Ballotpedia released its State of Election Policy Legislation 2026 Spring Report, which finds that state legislatures enacted 236 election-related bills across 34 states in the first four months of 2026. The report highlights various specific policy areas including proof-of-citizenship laws, ranked-choice voting legislation, and mid-decade redistricting activity.
Arizona
Pima County is creating an Elections Oversight Task Force to ensure open lines of communication between all the offices that play a role in elections.
District of Columbia
Voters in the June 16 primary and D.C. Council special election will participate in ranked choice voting for the first time under Initiative 83, approved by voters in 2024. Voters will be able to rank up to five candidates in each race.
Georgia
The State Board of Elections decided that it was not within its jurisdiction to decide the state’s new method of voting. This decision came after the legislature voted to ban the current system that utilizes a QR code for ballot tabulation. The SBOE stated that this is a decision for the legislature, who adjourned for the year without creating a new system to replace the QR code system.
Indiana
The Henry County Election Board announced that a programming error in electronic ballots during the Republican primary allowed some voters residing in Wayne Township Precincts 1, 2, and 3 but outside the town limits of Knightstown to cast ballots in the town’s clerk-treasurer and town council races. Officials said there is no way to determine how many ineligible votes were cast; the unofficial results show the clerk-treasurer race separated by three votes. Unofficial results showed the Town Treasurer primary contest was separated by three votes.
Iowa
Secretary of State Pate announced that the state has complied with the U.S. Department of Justice’s request for the state’s complete voter file.
Louisiana
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that invalidated the state’s congressional district maps, Governor Landry has delayed the state’s primary elections until July so the Legislature can redraw the maps.
Maryland
State Senate President Bill Ferguson, who last year opposed a push to redraw the state’s congressional map, told allies he is now open to discussing a path forward. The emerging effort would aim to eliminate the Eastern Shore district of Representative Andy Harris, the state’s lone Republican and chair of the House Freedom Caucus.
Michigan
A Wayne County clerk responded to the DOJ’s demand for 2024 election ballots, receipts, and envelopes from the county by informing Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon in writing that the county is not the legal custodian of those records, which under Michigan law are maintained by municipal clerks.
A state court dismissed all felony charges against former Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott and attorney Stefanie Lambert Junttila, who had been accused of permitting an unauthorized analyst to access electronic poll book data from the 2020 general election. The court held that although the voter data at issue is exempt from disclosure under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act, the statute imposes no separate confidentiality or nondisclosure requirement, and that creating such a requirement would exceed what the legislature enacted. A misdemeanor charge against Scott for disobeying instructions from the Secretary of State remains pending.
Mississippi
Governor Reeves cancelled the special legislative session scheduled for May 20 to redraw the state’s Supreme Court districts, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated the federal district court order that required the state to redraw its map. Reeves indicated that congressional redistricting will likely be deferred to the 2027 regular legislative session absent a further special session.
Missouri
Boone County Clerk Brianna Lennon informed Secretary of State Hoskins in writing that she will not revise voter rolls to reflect the state’s new congressional map until Hoskins issues a determination on whether the People Not Politicians referendum petition has gathered sufficient signatures to qualify for the ballot.
Nevada
Ahead of the June 9 primary, the Washoe County Registrar of Voters unveiled new signature-verification software that will, for the first time, analyze the signatures on mail ballot envelopes and route matching ballots directly to precinct sorting without human review. Officials project this will improve mail-ballot processing efficiency by 15 to 20%. Ballots whose signatures the software cannot match will be referred to a bipartisan team for manual review; if the signature remains unverified, the ballot is challenged.
New Jersey
Henrilynn Ibezim, a former Democratic mayoral candidate in Plainfield, pled guilty to forging hundreds of voter registration applications.
Federal prosecutors charged four non-citizens with illegally voting in elections between 2020 and 2024. Prosecutors say the defendants also falsely stated on their naturalization paperwork that they had never voted or registered to vote in a federal election.
The New Jersey GOP announced the formation of an Election Integrity Task Force, comprised of state party officials and several county election commissioners and administrators, to identify and address irregularities in New Jersey’s election system and to complement the Republican National Committee’s ongoing efforts in the state.
New Mexico
Technical problems plagued the first day of early voting in the June 2 primary election, affecting the state’s same-day voter registration system in a handful of counties. Officials said the disruptions were resolved within hours and impacted voters were still able to cast provisional ballots.
New York
Congresswoman Claudia Tenney wrote to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche regarding New York legislation that would automatically register Medicaid applicants and enrollees. Rep. Tenney cites to verification problems and the large numbers of noncitizen enrollees as grounds for the Department of Justice to evaluate whether the legislation would violate the National Voter Registration Act
Ohio
Advocacy groups are calling for the reinstatement of the grace period for the delivery of mail ballots to local Board of Elections. This comes after the Legislature passed a bill eliminating the grace period, requiring all absentee ballots be returned by 7:30 PM on Election Day.
The United States Department of Homeland Security has launched an investigation into potential voting fraud in Franklin County. Over 50 individuals are named in this investigation. The investigation appears to be focused on non-citizen voting.
Pennsylvania
Lehigh County officials confirmed that the county election office had inadvertently used the May 2025 voter rolls to mail out ballots for the May 19, 2026 primary, resulting in hundreds of erroneous mail-in ballots being sent to voters who had since moved, changed parties, or died, and to some voters who had not requested mail ballots in the 2026 cycle. About 115 individuals who changed their party affiliation in the last year received the wrong ballot.
South Carolina
A push to allow the South Carolina General Assembly to return after the regular session ends to consider mid-decade congressional redistricting failed in the state Senate after a 29-17 vote fell two votes short of the required two-thirds majority.
Tennessee
After the General Assembly passed and Governor Lee signed a new congressional map during a special session, county election officials began work to redraw precinct boundaries and update voter records ahead of the August primary. The changes affect roughly 75% of voters in Davidson County, where officials plan to mail new registration cards to all voters.
Utah
Lieutenant Governor Henderson determined that the initiative petition to repeal Proposition 4—the 2018 voter-approved law creating an independent redistricting commission—failed to qualify for the 2026 ballot. Although the effort, backed by Utahns for Representative Government, exceeded the statewide signature threshold, it met the required 8 percent threshold in only 24 of Utah’s 29 state Senate districts, two short of the 26 required.
Virginia
Governor Spanberger announced that Virginia has rejoined the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) as its 27th member state, reversing the 2023 withdrawal directed by former Governor Youngkin. Elections Commissioner Steven Koski said the state will integrate ERIC’s cross-state movers, in-state movers, duplicate-registration, and deceased-voter reports into its voter list maintenance procedures.
Wisconsin
The Wisconsin Elections Commission ordered the City of Madison and Dane County boards of canvassers to un-count 23 absentee ballots from the April 7 election, finding that although the ballots had been received by the city clerk’s office before the Monday before Election Day, a courier delay caused them to arrive at their polling places after the statutory 8 p.m. deadline. In a separate unanimous action, the commission ordered Mequon and Ozaukee County to count five absentee ballots that had been excluded based on disputed witness-address requirements.
The FBI questioned a senior Wisconsin elections official about aspects of the 2020 presidential election in the state. The official has not been publicly identified, and investigators have not disclosed whether the interview is connected to a grand jury or other criminal inquiry.
Alabama
Allen v. Milligan, No. 2:21-cv-1291 (N.D. Ala.)
On May 11, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Alabama’s emergency application to stay the injunctions that had required the state to use a court-imposed congressional map containing two majority-black districts. The ruling came less than two weeks after the Court’s April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which held that race may not predominate in the drawing of legislative districts.
Arizona
Pinal County v. Fontes, No. CV2026-003106 (Ariz. Super. Ct., Maricopa Cnty.)
On May 1, a state court ruled that Secretary of State Fontes exceeded his authority by adopting a provision of the state Elections Procedures Manual that required precinct-based counties to allow voters who appeared at the wrong polling place to cast a provisional ballot using an accessible voting device programmed with all of the county’s ballot styles. The court found that the requirement would effectively force Pinal County—the only Arizona county still using a precinct-based system—to adopt a vote center model, a decision the court held is reserved by statute to county boards of supervisors.
Heap v. Galvin, No. CV2025-020621 (Ariz. Super. Ct., Maricopa Cnty.)
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors asked a state court to stay its April ruling that had ordered the Board to return information technology systems and certain election-related duties to County Recorder Justin Heap. The Board argued that implementing the ruling immediately would disrupt ongoing local elections in Tempe and Guadalupe and could cost the county tens of millions of dollars to build separate IT systems.
District of Columbia
DSCC v. Trump, No. 1:26-cv-01114 (D.D.C.)
On May 1, the U.S. Department of Justice moved to dismiss this consolidated challenge to President Trump’s March 31 executive order on mail voting, arguing the suit is premature because no agency has implemented the order. Supporting declarations from the U.S. Postal Service, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Social Security Administration state that each agency is still deliberating and has not reached final decisions. A coalition of Republican attorneys general led by Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway separately filed a brief defending the order. The court has scheduled a hearing for May 14.
Florida
Florida Decides Healthcare, Inc. v. Byrd, No. 4:25-cv-00211 (N.D. Fla.)
On April 30, a federal court dismissed a challenge to state restrictions on citizen-led ballot initiatives. The ruling allows the state to continue enforcing provisions that shorten petition-return deadlines, and require petition circulators to be Florida residents and U.S. citizens and to register with the state. The court found that the legislature was authorized to “protect the integrity” of the initiative process.
Thompson-Wynn v. Byrd, No. 2026-ca-000925 (Fla. 2d Jud. Cir., Leon Cnty.)
On May 4, two national advocacy organizations and a group of Florida voters joined to file suit against the newly enacted congressional map in state court. The lawsuit alleges that the new map violates the Fair Districts Amendment, which prohibits partisan gerrymandering.
Two similar lawsuits were filed the same day by the Equal Ground Education Fund and Common Cause.
Georgia
Pitts v. United States, No. 1:26-cv-00809 (N.D. Ga.)
On May 6, a federal court denied Fulton County’s request to force DOJ to return more than 600 boxes of 2020 election ballots and records seized by the FBI earlier this year as part of an investigation into alleged election irregularities. The court held that the county failed to show the government acted with “callous disregard” for constitutional rights.
Quinn v. Raffensperger, No. 1:24-cv-04364 (N.D. Ga.)
On May 11, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit rejected an effort by two voters to revive a lawsuit seeking to compel Secretary of State Raffensperger to investigate alleged voter roll irregularities. The court held the plaintiffs lacked standing.
Illinois
Ives v. Pritzker, No. 3:26-cv-03158 (C.D. Ill.)
On May 8, the Public Interest Legal Foundation filed suit in federal court on behalf of former state legislator Jeanne Ives challenging the Illinois Voting Rights Act of 2011, arguing that the statute mandates the use of race in drawing legislative districts and therefore violates the Fifteenth Amendment and the federal Voting Rights Act under the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Louisiana v. Callais.
Louisiana
Louisiana v. Callais, No. 3:24-cv-00122 (W.D. La.)
On May 4, the Supreme Court agreed to immediately issue its order allowing the recent decision to take effect ahead of the normal schedule. The order clears the way for Louisiana to redraw congressional districts before the 2026 midterms.
Bernard v. Landry, No. 3:26-cv-00487 (M.D. La.)
On May 4, five individual voters, the League of Women Voters of Louisiana, and the League of Women Voters of Louisiana Education Fund filed suit in federal court against Secretary of State Landry challenging Governor Landry’s April 30 executive order suspending the state’s May 16 congressional primary, after early voting had already begun, to allow the legislature to redraw the state’s congressional map following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais.
Separate lawsuits were filed by a Democratic primary candidate and the National Council of Jewish Women.
Nairne v. Landry, No. 3:22-cv-178 (M.D. La.)
On May 7, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated its earlier ruling striking down Louisiana’s state legislative map, and remanded to the district court for consideration following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Louisiana v. Callais.
Michigan
Mantravadi v. Mich. Bureau of Elections, No. 24-000038-MZ (Mich. Ct. Cl.)
On May 4, a state court ruled that the Bureau of Elections cannot withhold records identifying which voters cast their ballots in person on Election Day, by absentee ballot, or during early voting. The Bureau had begun redacting that information after the 2022 adoption of early voting, arguing that combining it with other public data could reveal individual voters’ choices in low-turnout precincts and thereby violate the right to a secret ballot. The court found that this “theoretical” risk was insufficient to justify withholding records that had previously been public, but ordered a further hearing to consider whether a narrower compromise might satisfy both Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act and ballot secrecy concerns.
Mississippi
White v. State Bd. of Election Comm’rs, No. 4:22-cv-62 (N.D. Miss.)
On May 11, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated the federal district court’s 2025 liability order that had required Mississippi to redraw its state Supreme Court districts, and remanded the case for further proceedings in light of Louisiana v. Callais.
On May 12, the federal district court directed the parties to submit a joint status report proposing how the case should proceed.
Missouri
Healey v. Missouri & Wise v. Missouri, Nos. SC101570 (Mo.) & SC101572 (Mo.); Maggard v. Missouri, No. 2516-CV29597 (Mo.)
On May 12, the state Supreme Court issued two decisions upholding the state’s 2025 congressional map and affirming that the map will be used for the 2026 elections.
In the consolidated Healey and Wise appeals from Jackson County, the court ruled that challengers had not shown the map “clearly and undoubtedly” violates the Missouri Constitution’s compactness requirement.
In Maggard, an appeal from Cole County, the court held that the submission of more than 300,000 referendum signatures by People Not Politicians did not automatically suspend the new map pending a statewide vote, affirming a circuit court ruling in favor of Secretary of State Hoskins.
Montana
Mont. Fed’n of Pub. Emps. v. Montana, No. XDDV-25-2025-268 (Mont. 1st Jud. Dist. Ct., Lewis & Clark Cnty.)
On May 8, a state court blocked enforcement of a law that reduced same-day registration to a five-hour window, while upholding a voter ID law.
North Carolina
Pierce v. N.C. State Bd. of Elections, No. 4:23-cv-193 (E.D.N.C.)
On May 11, plaintiffs filed a stipulation of dismissal of their appeal challenging state Senate Districts 1 and 2 as racial gerrymanders under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The court granted the dismissal the same day, ending federal litigation over the two northeastern districts.
Ohio
State ex rel. Shannon v. Ogg, Slip Op. No. 2026-Ohio-1599
On May 4, the state Supreme Court ruled that petitioners seeking to recall Whitehall Mayor Michael Bivens and two city councilmembers failed to gather enough valid signatures to place the recall on the ballot. The court found that Whitehall’s clerk of council improperly certified the petitions because the campaigns had not met the city charter’s signature threshold requirements. The ruling halted the planned recall election while organizers attempt to gather additional signatures and continue the effort.
Tennessee
NAACP Tenn. State Conf. v. Tennessee, No. 26-0591-II(Davidson Cnty. Ch. Ct.)
On May 7, the Tennessee NAACP filed an emergency lawsuit in state court seeking to block Tennessee’s newly enacted congressional map. The complaint alleges the Republican-led mid-decade redistricting violates Tennessee law and the state constitution, including a longstanding prohibition on changing congressional districts between census cycles that lawmakers repealed during a special legislative session. The state filed its response on May 8, stating the suit failed to identify “imminent harm.”
Sherman v. Hargett, No. 3:26-cv-00616 (M.D. Tenn.)
On May 11, the American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Tennessee filed suit in federal court challenging the state’s newly enacted congressional map. The complaint alleges that the legislature enacted the map with discriminatory purpose in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and in retaliation against voters in the former Ninth Congressional District in violation of the First Amendment, and seeks an order restoring the 2022 map for the 2026 election.
Hale v. Lee, No. 3:26-cv-00603 (M.D. Tenn.)
On May 12, a federal court scheduled a May 20 hearing on plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order blocking the state’s newly enacted congressional map. This date would fall five days after the May 15 candidate-qualifying deadline established by the same legislation. Plaintiffs—comprising the state party, four Democratic congressional candidates, and four voters—filed a motion he same day seeking an immediate hearing by May 15, arguing that the later date risks voter confusion and would force candidate-plaintiffs to campaign in districts they contend are unlawfully drawn.
U.S. Virgin Islands
Moorhead v. Fawkes, No. 1:26-cv-00006 (D.V.I.)
On May 1, three candidates for territorial office filed suit in federal court challenging several Virgin Islands ballot-access rules and a recent settlement between the Democratic Party of the Virgin Islands and election officials. The complaint asks the court to strike down the 200-signature requirement for independent delegate candidates, invalidate a “dual-certification framework” established through the Democratic Party settlement, and bar election officials from rejecting petition signatures from voters classified as inactive. The plaintiffs argue the current system imposes unequal burdens on similarly situated candidates in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments and exceeds statutory authority.
Virginia
Scott v. McDougle, No. CL25-1582-00 (Va. Cir. Ct., Tazwell Cnty.)
On May 11, state officials filed an emergency application with U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts seeking to stay the Supreme Court of Virginia’s May 8 decision invalidating the voter-approved redistricting amendment and its resulting congressional map. The Virginia court held that the General Assembly violated the state constitution by holding the first of two required votes on the amendment after early voting in the 2025 general election had already begun, on the theory that the constitutional requirement of an “intervening election” between the votes had not been satisfied. The applicants argue that this interpretation rests on a “grave misreading” of federal election law, which they contend defines an “election” as occurring on a single day, and that the Virginia court therefore “transgressed the ordinary bounds of judicial review.”
West Virginia
United States v. Warner, No. 2:26-CV-00156-TEJ (S.D. W. Va.)
On April 29, Secretary of State Warner filed a motion to dismiss the DOJ’s lawsuit seeking unredacted voter registration data, arguing that the demand exceeds the agency’s statutory authority under Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960 and that state law permits release only of redacted records. The filing further argues that the DOJ’s stated purpose has shifted from list-maintenance review to immigration enforcement, placing the request outside Title III’s scope.
Wisconsin
On May 5, Dane County filed an appeal in state court challenging a Wisconsin Elections Commission decision rejecting 23 absentee ballots cast in Madison’s April 1 election after city officials delivered the ballots to polling locations after the statutory 8 p.m. deadline. The county argues the commission exceeded its authority and unlawfully disenfranchised voters who timely returned their ballots but were affected by administrative errors outside their control.
Honig v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, No. 2026CV001463 (Wis. Cir. Ct., Dane Cnty.)
On May 6, an advocacy group filed suit in state court challenging a Wisconsin Elections Commission order directing officials not to count 23 absentee ballots cast in Madison’s April 7 election. The lawsuit argues the ballots were timely completed and submitted by voters, and that rejecting the ballots because election officials delivered them to polling places after 8 p.m. violates the Wisconsin Constitution.
Fox News reported on the Republican National Committee’s multimillion-dollar election integrity push ahead of the midterms.
On May 11, Committee on House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil introduced the Campaign Finance Transparency Act and the Preventing Foreign Interference In American Elections Act. The legislation aims to “increase transparency and ensure fraudulent and foreign donations cannot influence political campaigns, individual candidates, or electoral outcomes.”
Hans von Spakovsky and Meaghan McManus argue that recent voter fraud prosecutions across several states demonstrate the need for Congress to pass the SAVE America Act.
A Washington Post editorial contends that only congressional action limiting redistricting to once per census cycle can halt the growing cycle of retaliatory map-drawing.
This study evaluates the hypotheses that, from 2012 to 2022, higher quality County Election Administration (CEA) leads to higher public confidence in election results and enhances this confidence among election losers. These hypotheses are evaluated using the new CEA index. Using the Survey of the Performance of American Elections data (from 2012 to 2022), coupled with multi‐level modeling, this study evaluates the impact of CEA on public confidence for election winners and losers. The study ultimately finds that higher quality CEA helps close the confidence gap between election losers and winners.
A study by Stephen Richer and Adam Ginsburg looks at how courts evaluate Election Day requests to extend polling hours.
The Grant Institute has potential openings for junior level attorneys and others interested in the study of election administration and voting issues. Interested candidates should please email their resume to info@grantdemocracy.org.