Voting Rights

“If this case is not the limit, then there may be no limit,” said Ben Thorpe, one of the lawyers representing Common Cause.

The “goal of this plan was to make Democratic votes count less than Republican votes,” said Ben Thorpe, a lawyer for Common Cause. “This is as extreme as partisan gerrymandering gets. If this case is not the limit, then there may be no limit.”

Anthony Gutierrez of Common Cause Texas called the ruling a severe blow to voting rights. "It is time for Texans to take up the fight for fair maps by establishing an independent redistricting commission," he said. "In a democracy, politicians have no business choosing their voters, it is the voters who should be choosing their politicians."

Gerrymandering critics used the ruling to call for reforms in how state political maps are drawn, including broader use of independent commissions instead of having state legislatures draw the districts. "It is time for voters to take up the fight to pass redistricting reform at the state and local level because a narrow Supreme Court majority under Chief Justice John Roberts has failed to protect the voting rights of minority communities,” Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn said in a statement.

Except for one state legislative district, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas congressional and state legislative districts and overturned a lower court decision that the districts were racially discriminatory. The lower court in Abbott v. Perez had previously determined that the districts violated 14th Amendment equal protection and the Voting Rights Act. Common Cause filed an amicus brief on behalf of the plaintiff-appellees in this case.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach's voter database has generated thousands of "false positive" duplicate registrations. Some states want to use to system to remove voters from their registration rolls.