Cindy Ormsby, the lawyer for the Ferguson-Florissant School District, agreed an at-large voting system “works best for African-American representation.”

She said Monday the district continues to believe the system does not violate the federal Voting Rights Act. She points to the fact that three of the current seven board members are African-American and that black candidates have won seats in each of the past three years.

However, looking at the race of the board members to determine whether there’s a problem is too simplistic, said ACLU Missouri Legal Director Tony Rothert.

“This (case) is really just about the right to elect the candidates of your choice,” he said.

In much of the decision, the judge wades through competing expert testimony on voting patterns in the Ferguson-Florissant district.

In doing so, the judge seeks to determine whether legal standards have been satisfied to demonstrate a violation of voting rights. Those standards are spelled out in the 1986 federal case of Thornberg v. Gingles.

Among those tests is whether voting across the school system has been racially polarized.