{"id":14737,"date":"2026-05-07T20:54:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T20:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/alabama-races-toward-final-votes-to-gerrymander-elections-already-underway-democracy-docket\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T20:54:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T20:54:40","slug":"alabama-races-toward-final-votes-to-gerrymander-elections-already-underway-democracy-docket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/alabama-races-toward-final-votes-to-gerrymander-elections-already-underway-democracy-docket\/","title":{"rendered":"Alabama races toward final votes to gerrymander elections already underway – Democracy Docket"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBy Jen Rice<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t\t
\t\t\t\t\tgutting<\/a> the Voting Rights Act.
An Alabama Senate committee greenlit legislation Thursday to use a congressional map that was previously struck down by courts under the very provision the U.S. Supreme Court gutted last week. The measure was approved<\/a> by the House Wednesday. Next, it will get a final vote from the full Senate, and, if approved, go to the governor\u2019s desk.
A House committee vote on a similar bill impacting state senate districts is expected shortly. 
Join 350,000 readers who rely on our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest in voting, elections and democracy.<\/p>\n

There are two major reasons why Alabama should not currently be redrawing its maps in an eleventh hour special session. 
First, absentee voting in Alabama\u2019s May 19 primary election has already begun. And secondly, the state is bound<\/a> by a legal agreement to use its existing congressional map through 2030.\u00a0
However, that hasn\u2019t stopped Alabama Republicans from racing to roll back Black voters\u2019 political representation in time for the current election cycle. State officials have filed multiple<\/a> requests<\/a> with federal courts asking that injunctions be lifted immediately so the state can use congressional and state senate maps that were previously struck down for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. 
U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures (D), whose district is targeted by the plan, testified at the Senate committee hearing, saying he was there to defend voters, not his job.
\u201cI ran into a gentleman last night and he said, \u2018Hey, man, I hear your job is on the line.\u2019 And I told him, \u2018No, Shomari Figures is going to be okay. Your voice<\/em> is on the line,\u201d Figures said.
Figures went on to slam the Supreme Court for gutting voting protections that are still needed to prevent hard-fought progress from being rolled back.
\u201cWe cannot pretend that that progress will remain, no more than we can assume that a cake can bake in an oven you turned off yesterday,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to keep those protections.\u201d 
Alabama is one of four Southern states rushing to eliminate<\/a> minority political representation in the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling, along with Louisiana<\/a>, Tennessee<\/a> and South Carolina<\/a>.
State Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison (D) told her Republican colleagues that supporting the gerrymander means casting a vote to continue Alabama\u2019s long, painful history of racism. 
\u201cHow long are we going to have to repeat history before we realize that all people deserve to be respected and deserve to have the feeling that they are valued?\u201d Coleman-Madison said.
Generations of Black Alabamians won\u2019t stop fighting, she added amid loud applause from the public. 
\u201cI\u2019m going to be here forever. It may not be this face, but it\u2019s going to be one that looks like me, and they\u2019re just waiting right now,\u201d she said.
The GOP-held Tennessee General Assembly Thursday changed state law to adopt a new congressional map that dilutes the state\u2019s only Black-majority district and breaks up its lone Democratic seat.
We depend on your support to keep bringing you the latest information and insight on the fight for democracy \u2013 always free and available for all. After all, we can\u2019t fight for the future of our democracy unless we know what\u2019s happening.
\t\t\t\t\t\tDemocracy Docket is the leading digital news platform dedicated to information, analysis and opinion about voting rights and elections in the courts.\t\t\t\t\t
\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t© Democracy Docket, LLC 2026\t\t\t\t\t<\/strong> \t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jen Rice May 7, 2026 Alabama lawmakers are on the verge of giving final approval to a pair of gerrymandered congressional and state senate maps. If allowed by federal courts to go into effect, the maps would immediately strip Black voters in the state of political representation in the wake of last week\u2019s U.S. Supreme […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14737","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}