Judge orders special elections for Mississippi Supreme Court after Voting Rights Act violation

A U.S. district judge ordered special elections for Mississippi's Supreme Court after finding the electoral map used to select justices violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The ruling comes after an August finding by U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock that the current 1987 map dilutes Black voters' power and effectively reduces their influence on the court.

In a Friday ruling, Aycock gave the Mississippi Legislature until the end of the 2026 regular session to redraw the map. She wrote that once a new map is approved, she would move quickly to meet any deadlines necessary to hold the special elections in November 2026. Aycock also said she would defer deciding which seats would be subject to a special election until after the new map has been adopted.

The order follows a 2022 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which argued the current map cuts Mississippi's Delta region — a historically Black area — in half, diminishing the Black vote in the Central District. “Mississippi is nearly 40% Black, but has never had more than one Black Justice on the nine-member Court,” Ari Savitzky, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said in a statement.

In her August ruling, Aycock noted that only four Black people have served on Mississippi’s Supreme Court, and all of them held the same seat in the Central District and were first appointed by a sitting governor. The Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office is appealing Aycock’s August ruling. The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has stayed its proceedings pending the outcomes of the Supreme Court of the United States case and other related cases. The Mississippi Secretary of State and Attorney General’s offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In December, two Mississippi Supreme Court justices were appointed to federal judgeships. Gov. Tate Reeves will appoint replacements to serve until new justices can be elected. In Mississippi, Supreme Court elections are nonpartisan and the state’s high court has traditionally been divided along regional lines in its representation. The Friday order underscores another chapter in Mississippi’s ongoing debates over voting rights, judicial selection and regional representation on the state’s top court.