Alabama voters will go to the polls Tuesday, May 19, for the state’s primary election, but a whirlwind of legal action and legislative maneuvering in recent weeks means that for voters in four of the state’s seven congressional districts, the results of the U.S. House races on their ballots will not count.
Gov. Kay Ivey announced Tuesday that a special primary election for Congressional Districts 1, 2, 6, and 7 will be held Aug. 11 under a redrawn congressional map. The special primary will not include a runoff.
All other races on the May 19 ballot — including the gubernatorial primary, the U.S. Senate primary, state House and state Senate races, and Congressional Districts 3, 4, and 5 — will proceed as normal and the results will stand.
Secretary of State Wes Allen said that votes cast in the four affected congressional races on May 19 will be tabulated and made public but will be void for purposes of determining the party nominee.
Perry County and Hale County are both in the 7th Congressional District. Voters in those counties will see the 7th District race on their ballots next Tuesday, but those results will not determine the nominee. The binding primary for that seat will take place Aug. 11 under the redrawn district lines.
The announcement came one day after the U.S. Supreme Court, in an order opposed by the court’s three liberal justices, vacated a lower court decision that had blocked a 2023 congressional map and required the state to include a second majority-Black district.
The order is the latest turn in a legal fight that stretches back to 2021, when a three-judge federal panel, including two judges appointed by President Donald Trump, found that a congressional map approved by the Legislature violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting Black voting power in a state where Black residents make up more than 27 percent of the population.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the lower court in 2023 in a case known as Allen v. Milligan and ordered the Legislature to draw a new map. When lawmakers submitted a revised map that still contained only one majority-Black district, the court found the state had defied its instructions and appointed a special master to draw new lines.
The resulting map created a second congressional district with a substantial Black population, and after 2024, Alabama had two Black members of Congress for the first time in the state’s modern history: U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell of Birmingham and U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures of Mobile.
Under the reinstated 2023 map, Republicans would be favored in six of the state’s seven districts. The 2nd District, held by Figures, would shift to lean Republican. Sewell’s 7th District would remain the state’s sole Democratic-leaning seat.
The chain of events that led to Monday’s order began on April 29, when the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Louisiana v. Callais that a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana was unconstitutional and that future challenges to redistricting maps under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act must show that the government intended to discriminate — a significantly higher bar than the previous standard.
Section 2 has been the primary legal tool used to challenge redistricting plans as racially discriminatory since the Act was passed in 1965.
Ivey initially indicated the state would not attempt to redraw its lines, noting that Alabama was under a court order prohibiting the use of new congressional districts until after the 2030 census. But under mounting pressure from Republican leaders and national party figures, she called a special legislative session on May 1. Attorney General Steve Marshall filed emergency motions asking the Supreme Court to lift the injunction.
In a joint statement, House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, and Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, said the session would give the state “a fighting chance to send seven Republican members to Congress.” Alabama’s congressional delegation currently includes five Republicans and two Democrats.
The Legislature passed two bills during a special session marked by protests throughout the week, culminating with one person being removed from the statehouse on the final day.
One bill authorized new primaries for Congressional Districts 1, 2, 6, and 7 if the Supreme Court allowed the state to use its 2023 map. A second authorized a special primary for state Senate Districts 25 and 26 in the Montgomery area if the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the state to revert to its 2021 Senate map. Ivey signed both bills on May 8.
Monday’s Supreme Court order addressed only the congressional map. The state Senate redistricting case remains pending before the 11th Circuit, and the special primary for Senate Districts 25 and 26 would take effect only if that court also lifts its injunction.
State Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, said after the Legislature passed the special primary bills that lawmakers were in violation of the state constitution and that legal action would be taken.
Opponents point to a 2022 constitutional amendment known as Amendment 4, which requires any election law passed by the Legislature to be enacted at least six months before a general election.
Figures called the Supreme Court’s decision “incredibly unfortunate,” saying on social media that it “sets the stage for Alabama to go back to the 1950s and 60s in terms of Black political representation in the state.”
Kim Bailey, president of the League of Women Voters of Alabama, called the decision “deeply disappointing” and urged voters not to become disillusioned. “Your vote matters. Your voice matters,” the organization said in a statement.
Voting rights groups have asked a federal court to keep the current congressional map in place, arguing that the state’s attempt to revert to a map that was never implemented while absentee ballots have already been mailed is contrary to the public interest.
