Florida Republicans racially gerrymandered two state senate districts, court hears

Some of the first voters in line to vote at The Coliseum in St Petersburg, Florida, on 08 November 2022. Photograph: The Washington Post/Getty Images

Republicans in Florida racially gerrymandered two key state senate districts to disenfranchise Black voters and skew results in the Tampa Bay area, a panel of judges has heard.

In one district, they took a small chunk of St Petersburg heavy with minority voters and added it to an area of Tampa in a different county, and across a 10-mile waterway, leaving the remainder of its electorate “artificially white”, the court was told.