OHIO — Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court stood its ground on upholding the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and one of its latest rulings on how legislative districts should be drawn. Legal experts now say the decision will have rippling effects beyond the state of Alabama. 

What You Need To Know

• The ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court concerning legislative maps in Alabama is expected to be applied in other cases across the country


• The decision could also impact the makeup of Congress


• In Ohio, the decision will impact the use of technology used to draw maps

“For them to take a stand on section two here — which is a pretty broad section about not being able to discriminate based on race and voting practices — for them to stand up and say that we're going to make sure that this particular section is upheld, that's significant," said Spectrum News 1 Legal Analyst Rory Riley-Topping.

Riley-Topping added this ruling is now going to be “applied to future cases and obviously could impact the makeup of Congress going forward because right now we do have a really tight margin of Republicans and Democrats in the House.”

Outside of the partisanship impact, how legislative maps are drawn will also be at the center. In Ohio, congressional and state legislative maps were drawn up previously, but they were rejected by the Ohio Supreme Court.

While map issues in Ohio don't deal specifically with the Voting Rights Act, she said what will have an impact is the use of new technology, something the U.S. Supreme Court spent a lot of time discussing.

“And how you can really pinpoint and draw different maps and how the petitioners were able to show by submitting their own maps that the types of districts that they were advocating for could be drawn,” said Riley-Topping.