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A three-judge federal panel in Tampa dismissed a Republican-backed effort to increase Florida’s number of U.S. House seats by challenging the 2020 census, ruling the case was filed too late. The panel threw out the lawsuit but said plaintiffs could amend and refile, according to Associated Press reporting.
The court action comes amid continuing pressure on Republican-led state legislatures to redraw congressional districts in ways that could benefit the GOP ahead of the midterm elections. The legal challenge targets the census process itself, arguing that the statistical methods used to calculate the census undercounted Florida’s population and cost the state two House seats.
The judges said the plaintiffs should have mounted their challenge within four years from the time the statistical methods were used, and they applied that timing rule to the case before them. The suit was filed in September 2025, well after the Census Bureau released its state-by-state population counts for Florida in April 2021.
Plaintiffs in the case included Pinellas County Young Republicans and University of South Florida College Republicans, according to the AP account. U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, a Trump-backed Republican running for governor, also was identified as a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
Republicans have increasingly attacked the 2020 census numbers, including in litigation where revised census figures could be used as input for redistricting plans. The AP report notes that the 2020 census figures were released during the first months of Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration, but that the decision-making for the head count— including the statistical methods—occurred during Donald Trump’s first term.
The dispute underscores how census litigation can become intertwined with election-year redistricting strategy, and how procedural rules, such as deadlines tied to when statistical methods were used, can limit whether challenges reach the merits.