Maureen Edobor Quoted By NPR Edobor contributed to a story about local impacts of recent voting rights cases.

By Law Communications
May 20, 2026

Washington and Lee law professor Maureen Edobor was quoted in a recent NPR story examining the impact on local elections of the U.S. Supreme Court’s voting rights ruling in Louisiana v. Callais.

Experts say one possible impact of the ruling is that local governments could move from districts constructed to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to at-large voting systems. Edobor said that could hurt local minority representation in some parts of the country.

“Instead of electing representatives from geographic districts, at-large systems really allow the majority to win. So in communities with racially polarized voting, that can actually mean that the majority population will win every single seat,” Edobor explains. “At-large districts can effectively render minority votes wasted. They won’t count because you’ll never clear the threshold of a majority required to elect the candidate of your choice.”

The NPR report was broadcast March 20 on NPR’s Morning Edition. The story and audio are available online.

Edobor joined the faculty in 2023. She teaches and writes in constitutional law, election law, and democratic theory, and serves as a Theodore DeLaney Center Fellow focusing on Southern race relations, politics, and culture. Her scholarship examines how constitutional and election law doctrines influence access to democratic participation and shape collective understandings of civic identity. Her recent article in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law examined the U.S. Supreme Court case Brnovich v. Democratic National Convention,” where the Court’s narrow interpretation of Section 2 of the VRA made it more difficult to challenge discriminatory voting laws.

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