AUSTIN — The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered Texas to hold off on partially redrawing statehouse maps before next year's elections.

A stay issued Thursday by Justice Samuel Alito is the second time the court has told Texas to wait on voting maps that a lower court says are fouled by racial gerrymandering. Earlier this week, Alito temporarily blocked a lower court's order that Texas redraw some of its congressional districts that were struck down as racially discriminatory.

A three-judge panel ruled earlier this month that statehouse districts in four Texas counties need to be redrawn before 2018 elections. It was the second time the court had ruled Texas' statehouse maps discriminatory. Earlier this year, the court had ruled that the state's 2011 maps were intentionally discriminatory. In 2013, the state redrew those maps after another court had found they had discriminatory effects. The 2013 maps are the ones currently used for elections.

In its ruling, the court said the intentional discrimination from 2011 carried over into parts of the 2013 maps. The ruling would affect five districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area: state House Districts 103, 104 and 105 in Dallas County and Districts 90 and 93 in Tarrant County.

It would also affect state House Districts 32 and 34 in Nueces County and Districts 54 and 55 in Bell County. In rulings favorable to the state, the court found that the 2013 redraw had remedied discrimination in Harris, Fort Bend and Bexar counties and that districts there required no more changes.

Attorney General Ken Paxton had filed an appeal asking for the stay earlier Thursday. Alito's actions are intended to delay the lower court hearings scheduled for next week on the issue until the full Supreme Court can weigh in.

Staff writer James Barragán contributed to this report.