Voter Confusion Amid Redistricting Push05/11 06:15

   

   BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- Thousands of Louisiana voters have already cast 
early ballots for congressional candidates in what soon could be the wrong 
districts. Alabama's primaries are a week away, but the state could force a 
do-over for voting on U.S. House races. A new congressional map in Tennessee 
upended races that had been underway for months.

   Republicans' rush to gerrymander congressional districts across several 
Southern states after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling hollowed out the Voting 
Rights Act is confusing voters and creating logistical headaches for local 
election officials. The changes are hitting while primary season is in progress.

   The chaotic upheaval to an election season that could determine which party 
controls the U.S. House is the latest fallout from an intensely partisan 
gerrymandering battle initiated by President Donald Trump last year to protect 
Republicans' slim majority.

   The Supreme Court's decision last month severely weakening the Voting Rights 
Act required Louisiana to reconsider a map drawn in 2024 with two majority 
minority congressional districts that elected Black representatives. The 
GOP-controlled Legislature could eliminate one or both in a state where roughly 
30% of the population is Black.

   The ruling also encouraged Republicans in Alabama, Mississippi, South 
Carolina and Tennessee to consider eliminating four Democratic districts among 
them, three represented by Black lawmakers. Florida has a new map meant to cost 
Democrats four of their eight seats, out of 28.

   In Louisiana, 66-year-old New Orleans resident Sallie Davis voted early last 
week. Her ballot allowed her to vote for Democratic U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, but 
a sign at her polling booth showed his race crossed off with a ballpoint pen. 
She was confused and frustrated -- especially when a poll worker told her to go 
with what the sign seemed to convey. She's now worried that her entire ballot 
will not be counted.

   "I was supposed to believe a piece of paper with an X on it marking out the 
person I wanted to vote for," she said, her voice breaking as she recounted her 
experience later. "I think I have been disenfranchised. I think my vote, that I 
just voted on, it's not going to count or something. I think it's illegal."

   Primaries postponed, deadlines compressed

   Louisiana's primary is on Saturday, and a week of early voting there began 
May 2, two days after the Republican governor declared an emergency and 
suspended congressional primaries to give lawmakers a chance to draw a new map.

   Republican Secretary of State Nancy Landry's office said nearly 179,000 
primary ballots had been cast as of Friday, including about 53,000 absentee 
ballots returned by mail. She said the ballots included U.S. House races, but 
votes in those contests won't be counted.

   In Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee, Republicans justified pursuing new 
maps by saying that electing more Republicans would better reflect their 
states' conservative values. Alabama lawmakers passed legislation Friday 
allowing a do-over of congressional primaries.

   Alabama's primary is May 19, and voting in congressional races will occur 
then as planned, but with the old districts. Those votes would end up not 
counting if a court allows the switch to different districts.

   Mississippi held its primaries in March, but a federal court has ordered it 
to redraw its state Supreme Court districts, and Trump is pushing Republicans 
to redraw the state's four congressional districts.

   A special session of its Legislature is set for May 20. Renovations of the 
House chamber will force members to meet at the Old State Capitol, where, 
decades ago, Mississippi lawmakers passed Jim Crow laws suppressing Black 
voting.

   "Modern-day voter suppression relies on election administration errors and 
chaos, and that's what we're going to see play out in all of these states," 
said Amir Badat, a Jackson, Mississippi, voting rights attorney and activist.

   Tennessee continues yearlong fight

   Tennessee was the first state to enact a new map since the U.S. Supreme 
Court decision, but Trump's push for redistricting started in Texas last year. 
Democrats countered in California and tried but ran afoul of the courts in 
Virginia.

   Before Tennessee's GOP-controlled Legislature passed a new map last week, 
the state's elections coordinator told county officials in a memo what that 
would mean: reprogramming election systems, retraining poll workers and 
possibly adjusting precinct boundaries, meaning some voters' polling places 
could change.

   Tennessee's congressional primaries still will be held Aug. 6 as planned, 
and candidates have until Friday to qualify for the ballot. Those who qualified 
previously will get a pass if they can run in a new district with the same 
number.

   In South Carolina, lawmakers could move all the state's June 9 primaries to 
August, or just the congressional races. While mail balloting is limited 
because the state requires an excuse to do it, more than 6,800 mail ballots 
already had been sent to voters -- with 260 returned -- as of Friday, according 
to the state Elections Commission.

   Holding a separate election for congressional primaries would cost $3 
million and the time for preparations would be compressed, Conway Belangia, the 
commission's executive director, told lawmakers Friday.

   "It will be difficult, but it will be possible," he said.

   Activists see problems ahead for voters

   Michael McClanahan, president of the NAACP's Louisiana State Conference, is 
hearing "total confusion" as voters call him and ask, "Is there an election?"

   "People say, 'I ain't going to vote because the governor's suspended the 
election,'" he said. "But he didn't, he only suspended one aspect of it."

   In Alabama, Senate Democratic leader Bobby Singleton said he has been 
fielding calls from public officials who also are confused.

   "These are the people who are the head of elections," he said. "They don't 
know what to do."

   Voting rights activists see problems that arose in Nashville, Tennessee, in 
2022, when Republican legislators divided the state's capital city into three 
congressional districts to take a seat from Democrats, as a harbinger of what 
Memphis voters could face this year. A state report said more than 3,000 
Nashville-area voters were assigned to incorrect districts and more than 430 
cast ballots in the wrong races in the November 2022 election.

   "It's going to be really hard for the election commissions to be able to 
keep up with this short timeline," Matia Powell, executive director of the 
voting rights nonprofit Civic TN, said during a conference call Friday with 
other voting rights activists in the South.

   Some fear confusion will lead to distrust and apathy

   Anneshia Hardy, executive director of Alabama Values, which provides support 
to voting and civil rights groups, said people will lose trust in elections if 
they believe the rules can change every two years.

   "Once people stop believing that the process is stable and fair, 
disengagement is going to increase, and that's one of the biggest dangers 
here," she said. "Democracy doesn't just depend on voting systems existing but 
really on people believing that their participation matters."

   At least a few Democratic voters who went to the Louisiana Capitol on Friday 
to protest the gerrymandering expressed doubt about whether they still have a 
political voice.

   Davis came to the State Capitol in Baton Rouge and had a bullhorn with her 
for a protest in which she yelled, "Whose vote? Our vote!"

   David Victorian, a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran from Baton Rouge, said: "I'm 
concerned for the survival of the democracy that we're supposed to be living 
in."