The upheaval in this year’s Southern primary season is being driven by Republicans’ accelerated efforts to redraw U.S. House districts after a Supreme Court decision that sharply weakened the Voting Rights Act, with the changes landing while voters are already casting ballots and election systems are already in motion.
In Louisiana, Alabama’s primaries are on the horizon, but voters and officials have faced a moving target as states reconsider maps and replace district lines that had been in use. The turmoil has left some voters uncertain about whether their ballots will be counted correctly, and it has forced election workers to prepare for updates ranging from system changes to retraining poll staff.
The changes trace back to the Supreme Court’s April ruling, which required Louisiana to revisit a 2024 congressional map that included two majority-minority districts that had elected Black representatives. With roughly 30% of Louisiana’s population Black, the GOP-controlled Legislature has the ability to eliminate one or both of those districts, which became a focal point for the state’s redraw.
Louisiana’s sequence unfolded quickly. A week before the state’s Saturday primary, Gov. Jeff Landry declared an emergency and suspended congressional primaries to give lawmakers time to draw a new map. Even so, the Louisiana secretary of state’s office said nearly 179,000 primary ballots had been cast as of Friday, including about 53,000 absentee ballots returned by mail, and the ballots included U.S. House races that officials said will not be counted.
For voters, the effects have been immediate. New Orleans resident Sallie Davis, 66, 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 Carter’s race crossed off with a ballpoint pen. Davis said a poll worker told her to follow what the sign indicated, and she later described the experience as confusing and legally worrying—“I was supposed to believe a piece of paper with an X on it marking out the person I wanted to vote for,” Davis said. “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.”
Across the region, officials and lawmakers have also tried to keep elections on track while preparing for district switches. In Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee, Republicans argued that new maps would better reflect their states’ conservative values. Alabama lawmakers passed legislation Friday that allows a do-over of congressional primaries, with the state’s primary scheduled for May 19 and voting on congressional races scheduled to occur as planned—but Alabama does not expect to count those votes because the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed the state to switch to different districts.
Tennessee’s redistricting fight has been especially complex. The state enacted a new map after the Supreme Court decision but divided Memphis among three congressional districts, according to the report. Before its enactment last week, Tennessee’s elections coordinator told county officials in a memo that the change would mean reprogramming election systems, retraining poll workers, and possibly adjusting precinct boundaries, meaning some voters’ polling places could change. The report said Tennessee’s congressional primaries will go forward Aug. 6 as planned, with candidates required to qualify by Friday.
In South Carolina, lawmakers considered moving all the state’s June 9 primaries to August or moving only the congressional races. Because the state requires an excuse to cast mail ballots, mail voting is more limited; the state Elections Commission said more than 6,800 mail ballots had been sent as of Friday, with 260 returned. The report said a separate election for congressional primaries would cost $3 million and compress preparations, and the commission’s executive director, Conway Belangia, told lawmakers Friday, “It will be difficult, but it will be possible.”
Voting rights advocates argued that the problems seen in one state are a warning for others as the changes roll out during election season. The NAACP’s Louisiana State Conference president, Michael McClanahan, said he hears “total confusion” from voters who contact him asking whether there is an election. “People say, ’I ain’t going to vote because the governor’s suspended the election,’” McClanahan said. “But he didn’t, he only suspended one aspect of it.”
Amid calls for guidance from frustrated voters, Democratic leaders in Alabama said they also field confusion from election officials. Senate Democratic leader Bobby Singleton said he had been receiving calls from officials who do not know how to proceed. “These are the people who are the head of elections,” Singleton said. “They don’t know what to do.”
Advocates pointed to earlier episodes in Tennessee, where lawmakers divided the state’s capital city, Nashville, among three districts in 2022. A state report cited by the article 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. Matia Powell, executive director of the voting rights nonprofit Civic TN, said that history suggests the new timeline is hard to meet. “It’s going to be really hard for the election commissions to be able to keep up with this short timeline,” Powell said during a Friday conference call with other voting rights activists in the South.
Some advocates warned that confusion could also translate into broader distrust. Anneshia Hardy, executive director of Alabama Values, said people will lose faith in elections if they believe 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,” Hardy said. “Democracy doesn’t just depend on voting systems existing but really on people believing that their participation matters.”
The article also reported that at least a few Democratic voters protested the redistricting at the Louisiana Capitol on Friday and expressed doubt that they still have a political voice. Davis came with a bullhorn, protesting with chants including “Whose vote? Our vote!” The report quoted David Victorian, a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran from Baton Rouge, saying: “I’m concerned for the survival of the democracy that we’re supposed to be living in.”