Some Southern states with early voting are reporting strong turnout among Black voters, and voting rights activists say the surge is a reaction to redistricting efforts that weakened Black political power. The trend was reported by Maya Miller of the Gulf States Newsroom for NPR.
At Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi, students packed Warren Hall for the Voting is No Laughing Matter tour, organized by the Southern Poverty Law Center of Mississippi. Attendees received a crash course in civics, covering topics from absentee voting to redistricting in Mississippi. Afterward, they signed a pledge to vote on November 3 and to bring a friend to the polls.
Aznii Welchlin, a senior at Tougaloo, said the threat of redistricting worries her for her community. She is also concerned about the cost of education. "We're losing so many rights, and we just can't keep going back, and we have to only push forward," she said.
For freshman Muarib Abdul-Tawwab, this will be a first election. He said most of his friends are newly 18 and have not voted before, but that they have been registering everyone they can. "Hopefully by November 3, we'll all be ready," he said.
The push to engage young voters follows several redistricting efforts in the Deep South. Alabama, Tennessee and Louisiana adjusted their political maps ahead of the November midterms in ways that favor Republicans, and more states could do the same for the next election cycle.
Ellis Bates, an elections analyst with VoteHub, said that since the April Supreme Court ruling that weakened the Voting Rights Act, some Southern states have seen higher Black turnout than in earlier primaries this year. More Black voters are also turning out for the general election, he said. Bates pointed to presidential-level turnout in South Carolina and to Black voters outvoting their share of the population in Louisiana, where the case originated. In Georgia, he said, Black early voting is roughly 6% higher than at the same point in 2024. "Just across the South, there's this energy after the Callais decision," Bates said.
The decision carries personal weight for Jelyse Davis, a student volunteer in Louisiana with the group People's Promise Youth Division. "I think it was a direct assault against representation for Black Americans, especially Black Louisianians," she said.
About a dozen young members of the group were canvassing in Cherokee Park, a majority Black neighborhood in Shreveport. Makayla Jones, the group's college president, said members want to change the narrative that young people are not doing the work of mobilizing voters. "We are out here working," she said. "We do this 24/7. We don't stop moving."
Jones said the group plans to keep going even after the November 3 election, with the aim of continuing to grow Black voter engagement.
