JEFFERSON CITY, MO (AP) — A Missouri judge has ruled that the state’s Republican-led Legislature illegally tried to mislead voters into repealing anti-gerrymandering reforms they adopted two years ago.
Cole County Circuit Judge Pat Joyce on Monday struck down the summary the Legislature had written for a November ballot measure that would undo key parts of the 2018 initiative.
She instead replaced it with a summary suggested by a group opposed to this year’s measure.
The 2018 measure made Missouri the first state to adopt a system in which a nonpartisan demographer would draw state House and Senate districts based on a mathematical formula designed to achieve “partisan fairness” and “competitiveness.”
The state’s Republican attorney general can appeal the ruling.
