Republicans in Texas county can’t swap voting maps between primary and general election, state Supreme Court says

The Texas Supreme Court blocked Galveston County Republicans from switching local voting maps between the primary and November election, rejecting an unprecedented strategy to maximize partisan advantage at voters’ expense. 

The state Supreme Court found Friday that the sudden switch violated Texas’ election laws by “unmoor[ing] the general election from its corresponding primary.”

“Nothing in the Election Code authorizes what occurred here: a voluntary alteration of precinct lines implemented between the primary and general election,” the court ruled.

The court added that county Republicans’ claim that governmental authorities can change electoral maps during an ongoing election for any reason raised “serious constitutional concerns.”

“Once an election has started and the primary has been conducted, new lines are incapable of being implemented consistently with the Election Code until the following election cycle,” it said.

Officials in GOP-controlled Galveston County voted this summer to redraw their local districts for the November general election, seemingly indifferent to any resulting confusion for voters who had already chosen their party’s nominees under the former district lines in the March primary.

In short, some voters who cast ballots in local races in March would find themselves in new districts by November.

Pro-voting plaintiffs filed an emergency petition with the Texas Supreme Court in August, warning the maneuver was a dangerous test of a new partisan strategy that could be repeated elsewhere across the state. With the election approaching, they urged the court to act quickly.

In a statement to Democracy Docket, Campaign Legal Center, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, said the ruling “sends a clear sign that Galveston County cannot illegally disenfranchise its voters.”

“While we celebrate this victory at the Texas Supreme Court, we are still continuing our fight in Galveston to ensure that any discriminatory maps are struck down so all voters can make their voices heard,” Mark Gaber, senior director of redistricting at Campaign Legal Center, said.

Galveston County officials weren’t the only ones trying to pull off an 11th-hour map switch this summer. 

Multiple Southern states enacted new maps in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling gutting the Voting Rights Act. But none of them passed new maps after already holding their primaries. In fact, Republicans in Mississippi, which held its primary a week after Texas, decided to hold off on redrawing maps until after the November election.

However, Galveston County moved forward with a new, last-minute map anyway. 

Represented by Public Interest Legal Foundation, a leading anti-voting law firm based in Washington, D.C., Galveston told the court that it could redraw district boundaries when and how it sees fit. It openly admitted that the move was intended to boost partisan advantage. 

The case has already been to the Texas Supreme Court, but it was rejected as premature. Instead, the justices said the plaintiffs must first take their challenge to a lower court. Texas’ 14th Court of Appeals rejected the petition on technical grounds without addressing whether the map change was legal. The plaintiffs quickly appealed the ruling to the Texas Supreme Court. 

Galveston County, no stranger to redistricting legal battles, is also ground zero for a high-profile, years-long redistricting battle that also played a supporting role in last year’s GOP gerrymander in Texas.

This is a developing story. Please check back for additional updates.