*bangs head on desk*
Missouri held its primaries in August using the 2025 Congressional map. The elections are in November.
Absentee voting started two days ago using the 2022 map after the Supreme Court rejected a bid to block the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision to throw it out in another lawsuit.
The Supreme Court granted a stay on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision allowing Missouri to use the 2025 Congressional map in November.
“The District Court and Court of Appeals should not enjoin or otherwise prohibit the use of the 2022 map in the 2026 congressional election in Missouri,” wrote SCOTUS. “And the District Court and Court of Appeals should not order or otherwise require Missouri to use the 2025 map in the 2026 congressional election in Missouri.
Guess you don’t have to use the same map in primaries and general elections (omitted citations):
On the merits, the Court’s precedents have not previously stated that Article I, Section 2 requires a state to use the primary election map in a general election, and given that the equities heavily favor staying this late-breaking intervention, it suffices that the merits are not entirely clearcut. The equities dictate that we stay the District Court’s September 21 and September 22 injunctions, as well as the Court of Appeals’ September 21 and September 22 orders. This Court has repeatedly cautioned that “lower federal courts should not ‘alter the election rules’” of a state “on the eve of an election.”
SCOTUS did not hold back at all. The justices reminded Missouri that in May 2026, the Missouri Supreme Court told the government “that the 2025 map would not take effect until approved by the voters in an intervening referendum, at least if the referendum petition was legally sufficient.”
Therefore, no court has caused this fiasco:
“So in the several-month period before the August primary election, the Missouri Secretary of State was well aware that conducting the August primary election with the 2025 map carried significant risks,” SCOTUS concluded. “The Secretary nonetheless chose to proceed with the 2025 map for the primary.”
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