Lawsuit challenges Alabama's method of electing judges

MONTGOMERY — Racial discrimination is at the root of an at-large election system that produces all-white appellate courts in Alabama, an attorney argued Wednesday in a lawsuit challenging the system, but an opposing attorney said political party preference, rather than race, explains the outcome.

A federal judge in Montgomery heard arguments Wednesday in the 2016 lawsuit brought by the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP and several black voters. They contend the election method violates the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting power of African Americans and preventing them from electing their preferred candidates.

The sweeping arguments covered racially polarized voting patterns, the state’s Republican shift in the mid-1990s and the strategic decision by the two black judicial candidates who have won statewide elections to not show their faces in campaign materials.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys displayed a pyramid with the faces of elected judges in Alabama. While the judges elected to lower local courts are racially diverse, the spots at the top of the pyramid — signifying the state’s most important courts— are all white.

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