ST. LOUIS, September 22 — A federal appeals court ruled late Monday that Missouri must use the same congressional redistricting map in the November 2026 general election that it used in the August 2026 primary, setting up a fresh confrontation with the state’s highest court and handing the U.S. Supreme Court a third look at a case that has scrambled the state’s election calendar with absentee voting already underway.
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals panel held that federal law leaves Missouri no room to switch maps between the primary and the general. “The Constitution does not permit Missouri to use a different congressional district map in the November 2026 general election than it used in the August 2026 primary election,” the panel wrote.
The ruling has been stayed for one week, giving the U.S. Supreme Court a third opportunity to review the dispute. Two previous Supreme Court rulings upheld the state supreme court’s decision to use maps drawn in 2022. The state court had found the 2025 map never took legal effect.
A Deadline That Wasn’t
The panel rejected the argument that the Sept. 18 deadline to distribute overseas and military ballots was itself a deadline for the court to act. It pointed to other cases in which courts ordered district changes after absentee ballots had already gone out to overseas citizens and military voters. Absentee voting with an excuse begins Tuesday in Missouri.
A spokesperson for the St. Louis County Board of Elections said that because of the stay, voters will use the 2022 map in the meantime. County election officials had warned the appeals judges in a legal filing that trying to change districts at this late date would be “practically impossible” and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Missouri Association of County Clerks and Election Authorities made that argument. But an attorney representing Republicans who sued — including U.S. Rep. Bob Onder and state Sen. Rick Brattin, a congressional candidate — suggested during arguments last Thursday that there is still time to revert to the Trump-backed map. The panel agreed.
Emergency Appeal Signaled
Richard von Glahn, executive director of People Not Politicians, which pushed for the statewide referendum on the 2025 maps and intervened in the case, said an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was coming. “Ballots have been printed, and Missourians have already voted,” von Glahn said in a statement Monday. “Thousands more will vote before this order seeks to take effect.
Officials should stop wasting taxpayers’ money on pointless legal action and instead focus on administering our elections.” The Missouri Secretary of State’s office has not responded to the appellate court decision. What happens next turns on the Supreme Court’s willingness to intervene a third time in a dispute that has already produced two rulings favoring the state court’s 2022 maps.
With the stay running out in a week and absentee voting already live, the window for any further change is closing fast.
