Foreman v. Dallas County, 521 U.S. 979, 3 (1997) (per curiam)

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Cite as: 521 U. S. 979 (1997)

Per Curiam

or not, "enact[ed] or [sought] to administer any . . . standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting different from" the one in place on November 1, 1972. § 5. The fact that the county's new procedures used political party affiliation as the selection criterion does not mean that the methods were exempt from preclearance.

Second, the State's 1985 submission (the recodification and a 30-page summary of changes to the old law) indicated that the only change being made to the statute concerning election judges was a change to "the beginning date and duration of [their] appointment." Thus, neither the recodified statute nor the State's explanations said anything about the use of specific, partisan-affiliation methods for selecting election judges. This submission was clearly insufficient under our precedents to put the Justice Department on notice that the State was seeking preclearance of the use of partisan affiliations in selecting election judges. See, e. g., Young v. Fordice, 520 U. S. 273, 286-287 (1997); Lopez v. Monterey County, 519 U. S. 9, 15 (1996); Clark v. Roemer, 500 U. S. 646, 658-659 (1991).

Because the parties agree that the record is silent as to the procedure used by Dallas County for appointing election judges as of November 1, 1972, the date on which Texas became a covered jurisdiction under the Voting Rights Act, we cannot make a final determination here as to whether pre-clearance is in fact required. We therefore vacate the judgment of the District Court in No. 96-1389, dismiss the appeal from the District Court's interlocutory judgment in No. 96- 987, see Shaffer v. Carter, 252 U. S. 37, 44 (1920), and remand the cases for further proceedings.

It is so ordered.

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