{"id":18559,"date":"2025-10-27T16:38:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T16:38:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/18559\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T16:38:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T16:38:06","slug":"voters-challenge-new-york-congressional-map-claiming-racial-vote-dilution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/18559\/","title":{"rendered":"Voters Challenge New York Congressional Map, Claiming Racial Vote Dilution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/AP25206661944867-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-51821\"  \/>New York Gov. Kathy Hochul speaks at a news conference, Feb. 20, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo\/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)<\/p>\n<p>A group of Staten Island voters* filed a lawsuit in state court Monday arguing New York\u2019s 2024 congressional map dilutes the voting power of Black and Latino residents in violation of state law. They\u2019re seeking a redraw of New York\u2019s Congressional District 11, which includes all of Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>New York\u2019s 11th congressional district is currently represented by Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, New York City\u2019s only Republican member of Congress.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The new lawsuit comes as President Donald Trump continues to pressure GOP-controlled states to gerrymander their congressional maps to rig the 2026 election. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/video\/hochul-says-new-york-will-consider-redistricting-in-response-to-texas-244309573737\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">signaled<\/a> her support for Democratic redistricting in response to Trump\u2019s plan. The New York congressional delegation is currently made up of 19 Democratic seats and seven Republican seats.<\/p>\n<p>Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NMalliotakis\/status\/1982799230407225758\" rel=\"nofollow\">endorsed<\/a> Malliotakis for re-election in a social media post over the weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The plaintiffs argue the existing map provides Black and Latino Staten Islanders less opportunity than other members of the electorate to elect a representative of their choice, violating the state constitution\u2019s prohibition against racial vote dilution, as well as the New York Voting Rights Act\u2019s protection of coalition and minority influence districts.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe racial demographics of Staten Island have changed significantly over the last several decades, but the 2024 Congressional Map does not reflect those changes,\u201d the plaintiffs said in their complaint.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re also arguing that District 11\u2019s boundaries are \u201cantiquated\u201d when compared to the New York State Assembly map, which \u201clinks communities of interest in Staten Island\u2019s North Shore and southern Manhattan,\u201d according to the complaint.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The voters are asking the court to order the Legislature to create a minority influence district that pairs Staten Island with lower Manhattan.<\/p>\n<p>The Staten Island voters are represented by the Elias Law Group (ELG). ELG firm chair Marc Elias is the founder of Democracy Docket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Gov. Kathy Hochul speaks at a news conference, Feb. 20, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo\/Julia&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-18559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}