An order was issued Thursday by the U. S. Federal Court in Albany, halting the upcoming Sumter County School Board elections.
The issue is the current district lines, and the process of re-drawing them.
Sumter resident William Byrd's attorney Bill Calhoun filed the suit last month, citing school board district lines, claiming that they are unconstitutional, because they have not been re-apportioned, based on 2010 census numbers.
Calhoun said this is just the first step in the process.
"The court can draw some districts on a remedial basis or interim basis. Those will be districts that will be used until the legislature takes some sort of action in the future," said Calhoun.
Sumter School Board attorney Maurice King, Jr. said, "There are some people who are upset with what the majority of the board is doing, and the way to change that is to go out and win an election. You can't win an election if you don't have one. So I don't understand the strategy," he said.
King says it's up to the school board to decide if an appeal will be filed. He added that the school board district lines were re-drawn in August 2010 to configure with current census numbers. The Department of Justice had 90 days to approve those lines.
The re-drawn lines at the time included 5 districts and 2 at-large districts.
King says typically the approval is made by the DOJ in less than 60 days, but it took longer than that time frame for the approval to be made.
The board decided to stay with the 9 districts drawn up in accordance to the 2000 census figures.
Elections will be suspended for districts one, two, four & six.
The lines will be re-drawn in federal court and could be completed before the general election in November.
Because the school board are non-partisan, King says that will bring out more voters anyway.
Copyright 2012 WALB. All rights reserved.
All content © Copyright 2000 - 2013 WorldNow and WTVM, a Raycom Media Station.
