Ballot Summary Won't Mention 'Gerrymandered,' Judge Rules

If Missouri voters get to decide whether to adopt new US House districts backed by President Trump, the ballot proposal presented to them won't say a word about gerrymandering. A state judge on Friday ordered a new, toned-down description of the redistricting plan after Missouri's Republican secretary of state acknowledged that he had crafted an unfair summary likely to create bias for the new districts by describing the old ones as "gerrymandered," the AP reports.

The ruling marked at least a partial victory for opponents of the new map, who submitted more than 300,000 petition signatures seeking to force a statewide referendum. But it's still not clear that the referendum will occur this November. Election officials say they are in the process of verifying whether opponents gathered enough valid signatures. And the state Supreme Court is considering a separate lawsuit seeking to invalidate the new map while asserting that mid-decade redistricting isn't allowed under the state constitution. Missouri lawmakers approved new congressional districts last September—the second Republican-led state, after Texas, to respond to Trump's call to redraw districts to try to give the GOP an advantage in this year's midterm elections.