The Associated Press reports a New York appeals court is allowing state Assembly elections to proceed this year under redistricting maps drawn by Democrats but ordered lawmakers to revise the maps in time for the 2024 elections.
The maps have come under fire from Republicans and other critics who say the lines signed into law earlier this year give Democrats an unfair advantage.
Two Democrats and a Republican had asked the court to invalidate the Assembly maps and move the primary to August or September, so new ones could be drawn.
In its ruling Friday, a mid-level appeals court agreed that the Assembly maps had been drawn improperly by the state Legislature but upheld a lower court judge who had ruled in May that it was too late in the state’s election season to come up with new district boundaries.
Delaying the primary until September, the court wrote, was no longer feasible.
The court returned the case to a Manhattan judge to decide how the new maps could be revised in time for elections in 2024.
Jim Walden, the attorney representing the two Democrats and Republican who sued over the Assembly maps, praised the court’s ruling but said he would appeal the part of the decision where the judges declined to move the primary.
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