Voter confusion and headaches for election officials follow hasty GOP
push to redraw US House seats
[May 12, 2026]
By JOHN HANNA and JACK BROOK
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Thousands of Louisiana voters have already cast
early ballots for congressional candidates in what soon could be the
wrong districts. Alabama's primaries are a week away, but the state
plans a do-over for voting on U.S. House races. A new congressional map
in Tennessee upended races that had been underway for months.
Republicans' rush to gerrymander congressional districts across several
Southern states after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling hollowed out the
Voting Rights Act is confusing voters and creating logistical headaches
for local election officials. The changes are hitting while primary
season is in progress.
The chaotic upheaval to an election season that could determine which
party controls the U.S. House is the latest fallout from an intensely
partisan gerrymandering battle initiated by President Donald Trump last
year to protect Republicans' slim majority.
The Supreme Court's decision last month severely weakening the Voting
Rights Act required Louisiana to reconsider a map drawn in 2024 with two
majority minority congressional districts that elected Black
representatives. The GOP-controlled Legislature could eliminate one or
both in a state where roughly 30% of the population is Black.
The ruling also encouraged Republicans in Alabama, Mississippi, South
Carolina and Tennessee to consider eliminating four Democratic districts
among them, three represented by Black lawmakers. Florida has a new map
meant to cost Democrats four of their eight seats, out of 28.
In Louisiana, 66-year-old New Orleans resident Sallie Davis 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 his race crossed off with
a ballpoint pen. She was confused and frustrated — especially when a
poll worker told her to go with what the sign seemed to convey. She's
now worried that her entire ballot will not be counted.
"I was supposed to believe a piece of paper with an X on it marking out
the person I wanted to vote for,” she said, her voice breaking as she
recounted her experience later. “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.”
Primaries postponed, deadlines compressed
Louisiana's primary is Saturday, and a week of early voting there began
May 2, two days after Republican Gov. Jeff Landry declared an emergency
and suspended congressional primaries to give lawmakers a chance to draw
a new map.
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. The ballots included U.S. House races, but
votes in those contests won't be counted.
In a “60 Minutes” interview that CBS aired Sunday, the governor started
to say, “It's not a big deal,” but didn't complete the word “deal.”
“If anyone has a grievance, take it to the United States Supreme Court,”
he said.
In Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee, Republicans said new maps,
increasing GOP seats, would better reflect their states' conservative
values. Alabama lawmakers passed legislation Friday allowing a do-over
of congressional primaries.
Alabama’s primary is May 19, and voting in congressional races will
occur then as planned, with the old districts. But the state doesn't
expect to count those votes because the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday
allowed it to switch to different districts.
Mississippi held its primaries in March, but a federal court has ordered
it to redraw its state Supreme Court districts, and Trump is pushing
Republicans to redraw the state's four congressional districts.
A special session of its Legislature is set for May 20. Renovations of
the House chamber will force members to meet at the Old State Capitol,
where, decades ago, Mississippi lawmakers passed Jim Crow laws
suppressing Black voting.
“Modern-day voter suppression relies on election administration errors
and chaos, and that’s what we’re going to see play out in all of these
states,” said Amir Badat, a Jackson, Mississippi, voting rights attorney
and activist.
Tennessee continues yearlong fight
Tennessee was the first state to enact a new map since the U.S. Supreme
Court decision, but Trump's push for redistricting started in Texas last
year. Democrats countered in California and tried but ran afoul of the
courts in Virginia.
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Sen. Charlane Oliver, D-Nashville, holds a banner and protests atop
her desk on the Senate floor during a special session of the state
legislature to redraw U.S. Congressional voting maps Thursday, May
7, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Tennessee’s new map divided Memphis among three congressional
districts. Before its enactment last week, the state’s elections
coordinator told county officials in a memo that it would mean
reprogramming election systems, retraining poll workers and possibly
adjusting precinct boundaries, meaning some voters’ polling places
could change.
Tennessee’s congressional primaries will go forward Aug. 6 as
planned, with candidates required to qualify by Friday.
In South Carolina, lawmakers could move all the state's June 9
primaries to August, or just the congressional races. While mail
balloting is limited because the state requires an excuse, more than
6,800 mail ballots already had been sent to voters — with 260
returned — as of Friday, the state Elections Commission said.
A separate election for congressional primaries would cost $3
million and the time for preparations would be compressed, Conway
Belangia, the commission's executive director, told lawmakers
Friday.
“It will be difficult, but it will be possible,” he said.
Activists see problems ahead for voters
Michael McClanahan, the NAACP's Louisiana State Conference
president, is hearing “total confusion” as voters call him and ask,
"Is there an election?”
“People say, ’I ain’t going to vote because the governor’s suspended
the election,'" he said. "But he didn’t, he only suspended one
aspect of it.”
In Alabama, Senate Democratic leader Bobby Singleton said he has
been fielding calls from confused public officials.
“These are the people who are the head of elections,” he said. "They
don’t know what to do.“
Voting rights activists see a harbinger for Memphis voters in
problems that arose in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2022, when
Republican legislators divided the state's capital city into three
congressional districts to take a seat from Democrats. A state
report 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.
“It’s going to be really hard for the election commissions to be
able to keep up with this short timeline,” Matia Powell, executive
director of the voting rights nonprofit Civic TN, said during a
conference call Friday with other voting rights activists in the
South.
Some fear confusion will lead to distrust and apathy
Anneshia Hardy, executive director of Alabama Values, which provides
support to voting and civil rights groups, said people will lose
trust in elections if they believe the 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,” she said. “Democracy doesn’t just depend on voting
systems existing but really on people believing that their
participation matters.”
At least a few Democratic voters who went to the Louisiana Capitol
on Friday to protest the gerrymandering expressed doubt about
whether they still have a political voice.
Davis came to the State Capitol in Baton Rouge and had a bullhorn
with her for a protest in which she yelled, “Whose vote? Our vote!”
David Victorian, a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran from Baton Rouge,
said: “I’m concerned for the survival of the democracy that we’re
supposed to be living in.”
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Hanna reported from Topeka, Kan. Associated Press writers Jeffrey
Collins in Columbia, S.C., and Kim Chandler, in Montgomery, Ala.,
contributed.
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