Unelected judges have thrown Missouri's congressional elections into chaos, issuing contradictory rulings that leave voters with no clear map less than two months before November's midterms — and no sign the courts will sort it out before ballots print.

The fight is simple at its core: Missouri's legislature, at Trump's urging, passed new House districts last September designed to flip a seventh seat red. Citizens collected signatures to force a referendum. A Republican secretary of state sat on those signatures until primary day. Now four courts have given four different answers about which map governs, and the people who actually have to vote are left guessing.

Here's how it unraveled. Opponents of the new map gathered hundreds of thousands of petition signatures last December to put the maps to a statewide vote. Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins didn't reject the petition until August — the same day as Missouri's primary — claiming referendum petitions can't apply to congressional redistricting. SFGATE and the Anchorage Daily News both reported the delay was intentional: it ensured the new, GOP-favorable map was used in the primaries.

The Missouri Supreme Court called foul. It ruled Hoskins was wrong, ordered the referendum placed on the November ballot, and declared the new districts had never actually become law — they were suspended retroactively to December. The old 2022 map, the court said, must be used in November.

Missouri officials ran to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Brett Kavanaugh denied the request Tuesday. CBS News reported Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanway had warned of a "federal-election-administration disaster" and "unprecedented chaos," arguing that switching districts between primary and general elections would render the primary "utterly pointless."

Minutes after Kavanaugh's refusal, federal District Judge Stephen Clark issued a contradictory order — a temporary restraining order barring the state from using any map except the new one. Clark, a presidential appointee, wrote that switching maps mid-election would "wreak havoc on the fairness and orderliness of Missouri's congressional elections" and violate voters' federal rights. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to reverse Clark. Opponents appealed back to the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday. Kavanaugh requested a response by Thursday morning.

The result: Missouri now has competing court orders from two different judicial systems, and the state genuinely doesn't know which map to use. People Not Politicians, the group challenging the Republican map, says the state has "no legal map to use" — a staggering admission two months before an election that could decide control of Congress.

Opponents have also asked the Missouri Supreme Court to hold Hoskins in contempt for taking steps to use the new districts. That contempt hearing is set for Thursday. State attorneys want the federal judge to block it, arguing a federal court order based on the U.S. Constitution supersedes a state order based on the state constitution.

The Guardian framed the conflict as Republicans seeking to "carve an additional Republican-friendly House seat." CBS emphasized the procedural back-and-forth and the threat to the GOP's slim House majority. Buried across the outlets: the fact that a state official deliberately delayed certifying a citizen petition to game the primary calendar — and that the same establishment now wringing its hands about "chaos" helped create it.

The new map targeted Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver's Kansas City district, reassigning parts of the city to two Republican-held neighboring districts and stretching the remainder into rural Republican territory. Whether that map survives depends on which court the last judge standing sits on.