Callaway sued to prevent the legislature from choosing the winner, arguing that the Georgia Constitution’s provision violated the U.S. Constitution. After certification of the election returns, a three-judge federal panel, including future Attorney General of the United States Griffin Bell, a Democrat, and Judge Elbert Tuttle, a Republican, ruled in Callaway’s favor, based on the 1963 Supreme Court decision Gray v. Sanders. The legislature was elected using the county-unit system which contravenes the principle of one person, one vote guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, and was therefore still “malapportioned” (the court had given the state until 1968 to redesign its electoral districts). The judges granted a 10-day suspension of their ruling to permit appeal to the United States Supreme Court and stipulated that the state could resolve the impasse so long as an alternative to legislative election was reached. The American Civil Liberties Union, critical of Republican crossover votes in the Maddox-Arnall Democratic runoff election, opposed legislative intervention or a new general election without write-ins being permitted. Instead, the ACLU sought to reopen the primary process. Other citizen groups proposed a special election. The Democratic state chairman insisted that anything other than election by the legislature would be "a sad commentary on the decline of constitutional government."