Supreme Court Halts Georgia Election Practice After Complaints It Violates Voting Rights Act

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Elections for two seats for the Georgia Public Service Commission, which oversees and regulates public utilities in the state, will not be held in November as originally planned after a Friday ruling by the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court slapped down a decision by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to allow the elections to move forward after Judge Steven D. Grimberg ruled the practice for the elections may be discriminatory. The Supreme Court asked the appeals court to reevaluate the case, but the state has dropped an effort for a stay, which would allow the elections to proceed in November, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

“While we will continue the State’s appeal of the merits of the order, no decision will be reached in time for November’s elections,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said in a statement.

The Georgia Public Service Commission has five seats, which each member representing a different state district. At issue is the fact that the commissioners are chosen through statewide elections. Multiple Black Georgia voters challenged this practice, arguing that because a third of Georgia voters are Black and they are a majority in the third district, the statewide elections practice violates the Voting Rights Act.

The New York Times reported:

About a third of Georgians are Black, but Black voters are in a majority in District 3, which is made up of counties in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Four Black voters from that district sued to challenge statewide elections for commissioners, saying the practice violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting their power to elect candidates of their choice.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay on the motion from Grimberg, arguing changes to the voting practice could not be made so close to the elections. The Supreme Court has now sent the matter back to the appeals court.

In a dissent from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling, Judge Robin S. Rosenbaum called Georgia’s statewide election practice “troubling.”

“If everyone in the United States got to vote on who Georgia’s U.S. senators would be, I don’t think anyone would think that the system was fair to Georgians,” she wrote.

Nico Martinez, who represents the voters challenging the voting practices, called the Supreme Court’s ruling an “important step toward ensuring that this November’s PSC elections are not held using a method that unlawfully dilutes the votes of millions of Black citizens in Georgia.”