Miami is fighting to block new court-ordered voting map before the November election
Update: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th District granted the city’s emergency motion to temporarily pause the adoption of the new voting map. Read more here.
On Monday, Miami’s government tried to quickly stop a court-ordered voting map from being used for this year’s municipal elections.
The city filed an emergency motion to block the use of redrawn district boundaries hours after U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore mandated a new map in a decision on Sunday. The new redistricting plan would impact who can vote and run in the upcoming November elections.
The judge quickly denied the city’s challenge on Monday morning. Hours later, the city filed a similar emergency motion in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. The filing noted that the plaintiffs, a coalition of community groups and city residents, are opposed.
Miami’s attorneys were on a tight deadline. County elections officials are requiring the city to finalize its district boundaries by Tuesday so the county can prepare for the Nov. 7 election. Moore ordered the city to transmit the court-ordered map to the Miami-Dade County Elections Department by the end of the day Monday, ahead of an Aug. 1 deadline set by the county.
Time required to reorient voters
Deputy Supervisor of Elections Robert Rodríguez told the Miami Herald the Aug. 1 deadline is necessary because elections workers need time to assign voters to polling locations well in advance of the November election.
“Our staff has to draw the new map in our systems, and then we need to re-precinct the city of Miami again,” he said.
As of Monday afternoon, Rodríguez said his office had received the court-ordered map, but not from the city.
“We received the map from the ACLU,” he said.
It’s the latest turn in a legal saga that began when a coalition of city residents and advocacy groups sued the city over the 2022 redistricting process, accusing officials of adopting an unconstitutional, racially gerrymandered map. After the court ordered the city to draw a new map earlier this summer, commissioners approved a new plan in June. American Civil Liberties Union attorneys representing the plaintiffs objected and offered their own alternative maps.
Whichever map is used for this year’s election is considered temporary because the federal lawsuit is still pending. The case is expected to go to trial in 2024.
Below is the city’s map, approved by commissioners June 14, which was rejected in federal court.
This is the map the judge ordered be adopted immediately for use in the November elections.
Quick challenge denied
Late Sunday, the city asked the judge to block the map on an emergency basis, arguing that a change three months before elections for three City Commission seats is “disruptive” and “throws the the upcoming election into chaos.”
“This Court is ‘tinkering’ with the election law less than four months before an election by mandating a new plan that significantly changes three incumbents’ districts,” reads a section of the motion that quotes case law.
Miami’s attorneys wrote that city’s June map met legal standards, and the lawyers representing the community groups took too long to challenge the 2022 maps. Commissioners approved the map in March 2022, and the lawsuit was filed in December.
Moore denied the city’s request Monday morning.
Miami’s emergency motion also acknowledged a problem for Miami’s District 3 Commissioner Joe Carollo.
The 2022 map shifted the boundaries for District 3 into Coconut Grove, which includes a home Carollo has owned for two decades. Carollo moved back into the home earlier this year, according to voter registration records. Now, the court-ordered map shifted the boundaries again, leaving Carollo’s home outside of his district, “arguably in violation of the residency requirements,” according to the city’s motion.
On Sunday, Carollo said he is complying with city regulations that require commissioners to live in their districts, but he declined to discuss specifics in light of the judge’s order.
This story was originally published July 31, 2023 at 11:34 AM.