Kemp calls special session on Georgia maps, ballot deadline fix

Gov. Brian Kemp signed a proclamation Wednesday calling the state legislature in for a special session to consider redrawing the state’s political maps and finding a solution to a looming election deadline.

The Georgia General Assembly will reconvene on June 17, the day after the runoff elections for the May primaries. The session will focus on redrawing district maps after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling essentially gutted the Voting Rights Act.

Any maps redrawn during the special session will not take effect until the 2028 election cycle.

Republicans have praised the decision while Democrats issue warnings about discrimination.

Josh McKoon, Georgia Republican Party Chairman, told Fox 5 that the maps need to change.

“The Supreme Court decision is clear,” he said. “That we can’t have these racially gerrymandered maps anymore. They’re illegal.”

State Sen. Nikki Merritt, chair of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus, said at a news conference Thursday that the decision is an attempt to silence Black voters.

“This is an attack on metro Atlanta; this is an attack on Black political power,” she said. “This is an attack on the growing coalition of voters reshaping Georgia’s future.”

State Sen. Harold Jones II, the Minority Leader in the Senate, told Fox 5 the decision is a direct attack on minority communities.

“We are now in a fight that we thought was over, we thought was fought in the 50s and 60s, and that’s our fight,” he said.

Before the Supreme Court decision, a special session was likely to be called to address a July 1 deadline that requires the elimination of QR codes on Georgia ballots. Because the state legislature did not address the issue during the 2026 legislative session, election officials have no guidance as to how to comply with the 2024 law.