A suit filed last week asking a federal judge to extend the qualifying deadline for Panola County Supervisors in not without merit.

At first glance I thought this was just another frivolous lawsuit aimed at harassing current power brokers.

After further discussion with a seasoned elected official, I now find it hard not to agree that in representative government, one should be elected by those whom they represent—not by those they represented in the past.

Panola supervisors had the opportunity, like other Mississippi counties, to postpone the March 1 qualifying deadline. They chose not to postpone, virtually rolling the dice that redistricting would be approved before the deadline or that no one would object.

Wrong. They lost. And so did at least 12 other counties facing similar lawsuits.

The problem of redistricting and elections comes up every 20 years when the 10-year census and the four-year election cycle coincide.

Someone did object in the name of the Panola County NAACP and now a federal judge will decide whether to proceed with the current batch of supervisor candidates or to allow additional candidates time to qualify once the lines are recommended to the board, discussed in a public hearing, approved by the board and then sent to the U.S. Justice Department for final clearance.

This is not the first time this has come up.

The late Robert Avant may have kept the county out of lawsuits in previous redistricting years. Avant’s connections with the U.S. Justice Department were such that, if it satisfied him, the feds would accept it. It appeared that the feds trusted him enough that they felt no need to search for discrimination issues if he had put his stamp of approval on it.

A power broker with tentacles that reached  to Jackson, Washington and back to Panola County, Avant had his share of detractors. But this is probably one lawsuit that would have been avoided had he not met his untimely death.