A federal appeals court has revived Georgia's legal fight over its 2021 Congressional and state legislative maps, sending the case back to a lower court for reconsideration under a tougher new standard set by the Supreme Court. The Eleventh Circuit vacated a previous ruling that had struck down the maps as discriminatory against Black voters, instructing District Judge Steve Jones to reassess the challenge in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which now requires plaintiffs to prove a "strong inference" of intentional racial discrimination rather than simply showing a map's effect on minority voting power.

Black voters and voting-rights groups filed three lawsuits between December 2021 and January 2022 alleging the maps diluted Black voting strength under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and Jones ruled in their favour in 2023, ordering Georgia to create additional majority-Black districts. Georgia complied with replacement maps used in 2024 and still in place for 2026, but the legality of the original maps remains under appeal. Because Black voters in Georgia overwhelmingly back Democrats, critics such as Hans von Spakovsky argue it will now be far harder for challengers to separate claims of racial bias from ordinary partisan gerrymandering, which the courts have held is constitutional.