The Kentucky Supreme Court has released a final ruling reiterating that a newly passed redistricting law is unconstitutional because populations within the state's legislative districts were out of balance.

Justices also echoed an earlier ruling that legislative candidates will have to run in districts that have been in place for the past 10 years.

The 27-page ruling explains the legal rationale behind a March opinion in which justices originally declared the redistricting law unconstitutional.

Redistricting occurs every 10 years to account for population changes found in the U.S. Census count. The latest count found that the state's overall population had shifted and grown from 4 million to 4.3 million between 2000 and 2010, requiring new legislative district boundaries.

State law requires that legislative districts must be of nearly equal size.