Fifth Circuit
Federal appeals court for Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
Fifth Circuit precedent framed two federal voting cases decided on 30 September 2026: the Justice Department's dismissed Georgia voter-list suit, which invokes the Court's 1962 records ruling, and South Carolina's voter-assistance challenge, where its 2017 OCA decision is the leading parallel.
Last refreshed: 1 October 2026
Timeline for Fifth Circuit
Mentioned in: Judge dismisses DOJ's Georgia voter suit
US Midterms 2026Mentioned in: S. Carolina voter-help cap survives suit
US Midterms 2026Mentioned in: DOJ appeals its Michigan voter-file loss
US Midterms 2026Mentioned in: Trump pivots to judges and litigation
US Midterms 2026Background
The Fifth Circuit hears federal appeals from Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, which makes it the Court of last resort below the Supreme Court for most voting-law fights in Texas. It sits in New Orleans with 17 authorised judgeships, and Jennifer W. Elrod is chief judge.
Its voting-rights record runs in two directions. In Kennedy v. Lynd (1962) it ordered a Mississippi registrar to open records to federal investigators. In OCA-Greater Houston v. Texas (2017) it struck down a Texas rule confining voters' interpreters to registered voters of the same county, holding that the rule narrowed the right to assistance in Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act. That 2017 ruling is the closest parallel for South Carolina's CAP of five voters per helper, which survived a challenge on standing grounds on 30 September 2026. On 1 August 2024 the full court, in Petteway v. Galveston County, overruled its own precedent and held that Section 2 does not cover claims by coalitions of different minority groups; Judge Edith Jones wrote for the majority.
Because Texas holds the largest delegation in the circuit, the Court's reading of the Voting Rights Act shapes how district lines and ballot access are fought there for years after any single election.
The Justice Department cites its 1962 precedent
When the Justice Department went to court in 2026 for states' full voter lists, it reached back to the Fifth Circuit's 1962 decision in Kennedy v. Lynd. That panel had treated a federal demand for registration records as an investigative step a registrar could not resist, and the department has cited it across its suits.
The circuit's authority has not carried those suits elsewhere. On 30 September 2026 a district judge in Atlanta threw out the Georgia case, finding that the 1960 records law does not override Georgia's privacy protections for dates of birth and Social Security numbers. Democracy Docket counted that as the department's 26th straight loss. Georgia sits in the Eleventh Circuit, so the Fifth Circuit's own judges have not been asked to apply their precedent to these demands.