More than 6,000 voters in a newly formed congressional district drawn to boost Black voting power in Alabama received postcards with incorrect voting information ahead of Tuesday’s primary. This development has alarmed advocates concerned about the potential impact on a race seen as crucial to boosting Black representation and Democrats’ hopes to flip the U.S. House in November.
Election official blamed it on a software error they thought they fixed back in January.
James Snipes, chair of the Montgomery County Board of Registrars, said 6,593 county voters received postcards listing the incorrect congressional district after the county’s election software misidentified some people living in the 2nd Congressional District as living in the 7th.
Snipes said voters arriving at the polls were still able to vote for the correct candidates. The county had sent about 2,000 notices to affected voters as of Tuesday evening and will send out an additional 4,000 on Wednesday, he said.
“Everyone who came to their precinct was able to vote for the correct candidates,” Snipes said, attributing the incorrect information to a “software glitch” made when adjusting to the recent shift in state congressional districts. “This was a good-faith effort.”
lection officials caught an error in the cards sent to voters in January and attempted to update their systems so voters would be listed in the correct congressional district, said Snipes, of the county elections board.
“We thought we had it all fixed,” he said, adding that officials didn’t realize that more voters had been affected. “We can’t figure out how the software did that to us.”
The district was created to strengthen Black representation after the Supreme Court ruled that the state had diluted the voting power of Black residents, violating the Voting Rights Act. The three-judge panel decided that Alabama, which is 27% Black, should have a second district where Black voters comprise a large share of the population. The move has sparked a congested and competitive primary contest as Democrats hope to flip the congressional seat in the fall. The redrawn map could lead to the election of two Black congressional representatives from the state for the first time. After the districts were redrawn, Black residents will comprise nearly 49% of the second district’s voting-age population, up from less than one-third. For many Black voters in that district, this is the first election where they have the opportunity to elect a representative who looks like them.
This is another classic case of disenfranchisement within a state that has a long history of black voter suppression.
A federal court ordered Alabama to adopt a new congressional redistricting map with a second Black opportunity district in October 2023. The redrawing of the state’s districts follows a June decision by the Supreme Court in which the state’s congressional map that was drawn to reflect 2020 census results was found to dilute the voting power of the state’s Black residents. The map, which was used in the 2022 midterm elections, had just one majority Black district out of seven seats in a state where Black residents make up more than a quarter of the population.