December 08, 2023
A federal judge is allowing two Native American tribes time to plead their case as to why an alternative version of a new state voting map should be used to correct Voting Rights Act violations should North Dakota lawmakers fail to meet a deadline requiring them to make the amendments themselves.
December 05, 2023
North Dakota Secretary of State Michael Howe is asking a federal district court judge to stay a ruling requiring the state's lawmakers to address Voting Rights Act violations, saying the judgment that also barred him from allowing the nomination or election of candidates in contested districts makes it impossible to receive meaningful appellate review before the new 2024 election map must be finalized.
December 01, 2023
Two North Dakota tribes embroiled in a Voting Rights Act lawsuit intend to petition the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to overturn an Eighth Circuit ruling that denied them an en banc hearing to plead their case as to how certain elected officials' communications are relevant in their challenge to newly enacted legislative districts.
November 17, 2023
North Dakota lawmakers have little more than a month to adopt a plan that will remedy Voting Rights Act violations, a federal judge said, determining that the 2021 redrawing of two voting districts and creation of two subdistricts prevents Native American voters from having an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.
September 07, 2023
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals won't allow two North Dakota tribes embroiled in a voting rights lawsuit to plead their case as to how certain elected officials' communications will help prove that the state's new redistricting laws weakened their electoral power.
June 16, 2023
A North Dakota tribe challenging the state's new legislative voting maps is asking the Eighth Circuit for more time to petition for an en banc hearing that, if granted, would allow it to try and overturn the appellate court's recent ruling denying it access to various lawmakers' communications in the Voting Rights Act suit.
June 14, 2023
The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, as it headed into its third day of trial alongside another tribe in a Voting Rights Act challenge to the state's new legislative voting maps, has asked the court for leave to preserve a claim of error stemming from a recent Eighth Circuit ruling that allows North Dakota lawmakers to maintain legislative privilege over documents detailing the redistricting process.
June 14, 2023
Days before starting a bench trial this week over allegations that North Dakota's new legislative maps disadvantage Native American voters, counsel for the Spirit Lake Tribe and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians didn't know if they could still lean on the central pillar of their case.
June 12, 2023
North Dakota tribes that claim the state's new legislative maps illegally disadvantage their voters can utilize a contested tranche of expert testimony, a federal judge has ruled, bolstering the tribes' Voting Rights Act lawsuit just ahead of a bench trial over their allegations.
June 07, 2023
North Dakota lawmakers need not produce documents detailing a recent redistricting process that two Native American tribes say weakened their electoral power, the Eighth Circuit ruled, allowing the Republican officials to assert legislative privilege over the records.