Voting Rights Law Faces More Setbacks With Conservative Judges

A federal appeals court’s rejection of a challenge by Black voters to a Georgia election system is the second blow to a key voting rights law in a week from judges appointed by Republican presidents.

A three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for Eleventh Circuit ruled Nov. 24 that the voters—who claimed Georgia’s system of electing public service commissioners in a statewide election diluted the state’s Black vote—hadn’t proposed a sufficient alternative to replace it with, blocking the judges from considering the case further.

Writing for the majority, Judge Elizabeth Branch, a Donald Trump appointee, said that while ...