Don't Let Politicians Redraw the Rules Again

Redistricting has too often been used to weaken the voices of Black voters and other communities of color by splitting communities apart or packing them into a small number of districts. These harms are not "just politics." They undermine fair representation and equal opportunity at the ballot box.

Read our Full Letter Here:

To: Members of the Georgia General Assembly and the Public

The Georgia Redistricting Alliance (GRA) is a diverse coalition of civil rights, voting rights, and community organizations, and community members strongly opposed to Governor Brian Kemp’s call for a special legislative session that allows for late-decade redistricting. We reiterate our position that redistricting should occur through transparent and predictable processes that are inclusive of and accountable to the people of Georgia.

The practice of drawing maps for political advantage often uses racial discrimination (i.e., the cracking and packing of racial minority voters) as a tool to achieve those goals. We must never lose sight of that and concede this is just politics and not racial discrimination. This harm is an affront to the promise of ensuring that every Georgian has an equal opportunity to choose their representatives, runs counter to the values of fairness, accountability, and equal protection under the law. Upholding the right to vote means preserving stable, community-based districts that allow voters to hold their elected officials accountable and participate fully in civic life.

Given the erosion of federal voting rights protections, the harms to racial minority voters, hyper-partisan gerrymandering, and other harmful impacts that vulnerable voting populations face, we remain strongly opposed to any calls for the state to undergo late-decade redistricting.

We urge state and local leaders to:

1. Reject all late-decade redistricting proposals in Georgia that could undermine fair representation.

2. Protect every Georgian’s right to vote by maintaining stability and transparency in the mapping process.

3. Uphold the spirit of the Voting Rights Act and ensure that district maps reflect the diversity of Georgia’s people.

4. Pass the Henry McNeal Turner State Voting Rights Act to ensure state provisions restore key voting rights protections eroded under the federal Voting Rights Act and voters remain protected when accessing the ballot.

5. Encourage full and accurate participation in the Census and American Community Survey (ACS) as the foundation of fair representation.

A late-decade redistricting of Georgia’s congressional plan would upend the stability of Georgia’s representative process and harm underrepresented communities across the state. When maps are redrawn to deny access to representation for racial minorities in particular, the result is confusion, diminished trust, and reduced participation among voters. It also risks long term policy implications, namely that Georgians lack access to representatives who they can urge to be responsive to their needs. These actions further risk minimizing, if not silencing, the voting strength of communities that have historically and continue to face barriers to full participation, including communities of color, rural residents, language-minority voters, low-income populations, and voters with disabilities. Our democracy depends on fair and transparent representation for all, not shifting boundaries that erode confidence in the electoral system.

Late-decade redistricting subsequent to the U.S. Supreme Court’s April 2026 decision in Louisiana v Callais is likely to wipe out ability-to-elect/opportunity-to-elect districts with significant concentration of Black voters across the state–disproportionately harming Black voters and other voters of color. The decision effectively eviscerates key voting rights protections, leaving another core provision of the federal Voting Rights Act a dead letter. Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of the Court’s decision, several southern states raced to convene special legislative sessions to redistrict legislative boundaries that previously had been found to be racially discriminatory in order to re-install the racial discrimination under the guise of partisan gerrymandering. This follows the Supreme Court’s immobilization of the heart of the VRA in 2013, which unleashed a tide of voter suppression and vote dilution schemes across Georgia, at every level of government, over the past decade.

Late-decade redistricting is likely to harm impact Black and other voting populations in particular. Indeed, reports already indicate that state legislators could consider cracking Georgia’s Blackbelt–a region with high concentrations of Black voters in Southwest Georgia–into separate districts thus diluting Black voters’ ability to meaningfully exercise political power at the polls, when choosing their preferred candidates. Further, reports indicate that Georgia could lose two minority opportunity districts. Such an undertaking would be a disservice to a richly diverse state with the nation’s second highest Black voting age population.

Late-decade redistricting undertaken for political gain violates the very democratic principles this nation was founded upon, and must be abstained from in order to ensure every eligible voter has a fair opportunity to elect legislators of their choice, versus legislators selecting their voters. Every voter deserves confidence that their district lines were drawn fairly and with integrity. We call on Georgia’s leaders to safeguard the democratic process, protect the right to vote, and uphold the values of fairness, equity, and accountability that strengthen our state and our nation.

In solidarity,
The Georgia Redistricting Alliance (GRA)
and the undersigned

^{1  Louisiana v. Callais, 24–109, 2026 WL 1153054 (U.S. Apr. 29, 2026)}

^{2  See, e.g., Greg Bluestein, Tamar Hallerman, Tia Mitchell, Supreme Court Voting May Not Alter Georgia Midterms. But 2028?, Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Apr. 29, 2026) https://www.ajc.com/politics/2026/04/supreme-court-voting-decision-may-not-alter-georgia-midterms-but-2028/.}

^{3  See Jen Krogstad and Mohamad Moslimani, Key Facts About Black Eligible Voters in 2024, Pew Research Center Jan. 10, 2024) https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/01/10/key-facts-about-black-eligible-voters-in-2024/.}