Supreme Court blocks Missouri congressional map and revives federal voter database

Supreme Court blocks Missouri redistricting map

On September 25, 2026, the US Supreme Court barred Missouri from using a Republican-drawn congressional map for the November 3 midterm elections. The ruling marked the third time in September 2026 that the justices addressed Missouri's district lines, halting a lower appellate decision that attempted to force the map into effect. By intervening 39 days before the vote, the Supreme Court let stand a ruling by the Missouri Supreme Court that prevents the reconfigured boundaries from taking effect without voter approval in a November referendum. As a result, Missouri will conduct its congressional elections under the map established for the 2022 and 2024 cycles, preserving two Democratic-held districts and six Republican-held districts. The decision arrived while absentee voting was already underway across the state, having officially opened on September 22 under the 2022 boundaries.

Appellate conflict and voter confusion

The legal dispute intensified after the St. Louis-based 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on September 21 that Missouri must use the new map, arguing that changing boundaries between the August primary and the general election violated the US Constitution. The appellate panel, comprising two Trump appointees and one appointee of another Republican president, ordered US District Judge Stephen Clark to make his temporary approval of the map permanent. That directive conflicted directly with an earlier stay issued by the Supreme Court on September 10, prompting an immediate appeal from the challengers, People Not Politicians. The shifting rulings affected more than one million potential voters (nearly one in four statewide) who had been moved between districts with different candidates.

Applicants are aware of no case in which a federal court of appeals has ordered a district court to reissue the same relief this court (the Supreme Court) had stayed through appellate and certiorari review.

Partisan redistricting battle for the House

Missouri lawmakers originally passed the redrawn boundaries in September 2025 following encouragement from President Donald Trump and Republican Governor Mike Kehoe. The revised plan targeted the Kansas City-based 5th Congressional District, held by Democratic Representative Emanuel Cleaver, by stretching its borders into rural Republican counties. An Associated Press estimate found that roughly 59% of potential voters in the proposed district were new to the area. The effort was part of an unusual mid-decade redistricting campaign pushed by Republicans in Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, and Alabama to defend a narrow House majority. Democrats countered with redistricting actions in California and Utah, though they experienced a setback when the Virginia Supreme Court rejected a Democratic-favored map.

Reinstatement of federal voter database checks

In a separate decision issued on the same day, the Supreme Court granted a Justice Department request allowing the administration to deploy an expanded voter verification database. The ruling paused a lower court injunction against the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, which was originally established in 1986 to check benefit applicants. Following a March 2025 executive order, the Department of Homeland Security released a revised version in May 2025 that integrated Social Security Administration records and enabled mass batch searches of state voter files. Civil rights groups challenged the system, arguing that outdated federal records risk disenfranchising naturalized citizens, pointing to a Travis County, Texas election official who reported a 25% error rate among flagged individuals. The Supreme Court ruling permits voluntary state use of the database while litigation proceeds.