Alabama's contested congressional redistricting battle reached a new flashpoint on Sunday as plaintiffs in the long-running Voting Rights Act case filed emergency briefs urging federal judges to intervene before Tuesday's special primary election, warning that proceeding under the Republican-drawn map would trigger months of constitutional disorder and disenfranchise Black voters in the state's Second Congressional District.

Governor Kay Ivey set the special primary for Tuesday following a vacancy in Alabama's congressional delegation, but civil rights attorneys representing the plaintiffs argued before the Eleventh Circuit that the election cannot legitimately proceed using district lines a federal court has repeatedly found to violate the Voting Rights Act. The legal filings, submitted over the weekend, accused state Republicans of deliberately scheduling the election on an accelerated timeline to foreclose meaningful judicial review.

The dispute traces back to Allen v. Milligan, the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling that Alabama must draw a second majority-Black congressional district. Despite repeated court orders, Republican state lawmakers have resisted compliance, producing successive maps that federal judges have rejected. Sunday's legal activity centers on whether a special election conducted under a non-compliant map would itself be legally valid, or whether results could later be vacated — a scenario plaintiffs characterized as a recipe for chaos.

Federal judges in the Northern District of Alabama were expected to respond to the emergency filings by Sunday evening, with legal observers watching closely for any last-minute injunction that could delay or restructure Tuesday's vote. The Department of Justice, under the Trump administration, has remained largely silent on the state's repeated non-compliance, a posture that plaintiffs say has emboldened Ivey's office to press ahead despite the unresolved litigation.

The standoff carries broader political implications heading into the 2026 midterm cycle, with Alabama's redistricting fight serving as a bellwether for how aggressively Republican-led states will resist court-mandated remedial maps. Civil rights groups have vowed to seek further sanctions against state officials if Tuesday's election proceeds under what they describe as an unlawful map, setting the stage for a prolonged legal confrontation that could ultimately return to the Supreme Court.