Utah’s San Juan County must redraw the boundaries of its election districts after a federal judge ruled they violate equal protection for American Indians.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby came in a lawsuit the Navajo Nation filed against the county in 2012. The tribe argued that the county’s decision to maintain a decades-old boundary for District Three was racially motivated.

Shelby agreed and said the county should have re-evaluated the district with each new Census count.

“San Juan County is not frozen in time and neither are the interests and attitudes of its citizens,” he wrote in an order earlier this month.

The current system of electing commissioners from single-member districts was implemented in the 1980s after the U.S. Department of Justice accused San Juan County of denying American Indians an equal opportunity to participate in the political process. San Juan is the only county in Utah where commissioners are chosen in single-member districts, rather than at-large elections.

San Juan County argued that it had a compelling government interest in leaving District Three unchanged. County officials testified that the settlement with the Justice Department didn’t allow changes without court approval – a belief Shelby said was unsupported by the language of the settlement. District Three has a nearly 93 percent American Indian population, while the other two districts are majority white.

County Commission Chairman Phil Lyman said Thursday that he disagreed with Shelby’s ruling, particularly in stating that the county’s decisions were made based on race. He said he suspects the Navajo Nation’s intent is to create at least two districts that can be controlled by Navajos in a sort of reserve discrimination.

The county last redrew its district boundaries in 2011, moving two voting precincts from District One to District Two in order to address concerns that the populations were disproportionate. It’s not clear whether the lines will be redrawn in time for this year’s election of one commissioner. The other two seats are up for election in 2018, Lyman said.

Navajo Nation Attorney General Ethel Branch said she’s hopeful Shelby’s decision translates to equal treatment of Navajos in San Juan County.

“It should not take a federal lawsuit or consent decree for the county to treat our people as equal human beings with equal rights to political engagement,” she said.

Shelby addressed another claim in the tribe’s lawsuit last year when he ruled that the San Juan County School Board election districts must be redrawn because populations weren’t equally distributed.