Suit claims Alabama's at-large method of electing judges violates Voting Rights Act
A lawsuit filed on Wednesday alleges Alabama’s at-large method of electing appellate judges violates the Voting Rights Act because it deprives black voters of the opportunity to elect judges of their choice.
Alabama has 19 judges on the state supreme court and two intermediate appeals courts, and all of them are white, according to a press release by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The group filed the federal suit (PDF) on behalf of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP and four individual black voters. Publications that covered the announcement include AL.com, the Associated Press and the Montgomery Advertiser.
About a quarter of Alabama’s population is black, and voting in the state is racially polarized. No black judge has won election to any appellate-level court in the last 21 years. The suit suggests dividing the state into districts for judicial elections.
Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee, said the case “makes clear that voting discrimination is alive and well across the state of Alabama,” according to the AP account. “We deem the situation in Alabama among the most dire in the country in the terms of lack of diversity,” Clarke said.
The Lawyers’ Committee filed a similar suit in July that targets Texas’ statewide methods of electing judges.
