New York county redraws voting map after lawsuit claims racial gerrymandering News
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New York county redraws voting map after lawsuit claims racial gerrymandering

New York’s Nassau County agreed on Thursday to redraw its voting map after a lawsuit claimed its political boundaries disenfranchised residents of color.

Once details are approved by the court, the county will instate a new map including six districts in which Black, Latin and Asian residents constitute the majority of eligible voters. In the current map, only four such districts out of 19 exist, despite the fact that these three groups make up over one-third of Nassau County’s eligible voters.

The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), LatinoJustice PRLDEF and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) came together to challenge the county’s current map under New York’s Voting Rights Act. The groups claimed the legislature manipulated the map-making process, and effectively gerrymandered the districts. The groups stated that the gerrymandering process has allowed incumbent political parties to remain in power by diluting the voting influence of Black, Latin and Asian communities.

The rights groups emphasized:

Though residents of color make up over one-third of Nassau County’s eligible voters, the redistricting map rushed through the Nassau County Legislature in February 2023 created only four districts out of 19 in which Black, Latino, and Asian residents constituted a majority of eligible voters.

The lawsuit was filed in February 2024 in response to New York Governor Kathy Hochul signing new congressional maps into law.

This is not the first settlement of its kind. Since the 2020 census, four other states have re-evaluated their voting maps due to racial gerrymandering claims. Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee all experienced redraws in 2023. Louisiana’s case went as far as the US Supreme Court before its map was deemed unconstitutional. South Carolina’s map was also ordered to be redrawn, but the decision was reversed in March of last year. 

 

 

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