GOP Gerrymandering Takes Major Blow After Judge Orders Redistricting

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The Republican Party is continuing to define itself by efforts to roll back the vote in locales across the United States, but now, they’ve been dealt a significant set-back in their plans. In a unanimous opinion, a North Carolina state court has ruled that state legislative district lines violated the state Constitution and demanded that new lines be drawn ahead of the 2020 elections, which are coming up very soon. The state GOP has indicated that they will not be appealing the decision.

The court bluntly asserted that the lines are “significantly tainted in that they unconstitutionally deprive every citizen of the right to elections for members of the General Assembly conducted freely and honestly to ascertain, fairly and truthfully, the will of the People.” As a result of the situation that they uncovered, the court bluntly declared that “in all but the most unusual election scenarios, the Republican party will control a majority of both chambers of the General Assembly.”

The voting rights group Common Cause North Carolina’s Executive Director Bob Phillips declared:

‘The court has enjoined the use of a majority of districts. We are thrilled that North Carolina voters will finally have an opportunity in the 2020 election to vote for state legislators under fair maps.’

CNN notes that the state had already been considered a swing state going into the 2020 presidential election, and now, even more is on the table.

The development is one of numerous similar ones throughout recent years. Before the 2018 midterm elections, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out that state’s Congressional district maps, ruling that they were similarly in violation of the law. Democrats picked up a number of new Congressional seats after that redraw as part of their some 40-seat surge of new seats in the U.S. House from across the nation.

Just earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to upend district lines that had been drawn to seemingly favor one party, setting efforts against gerrymandering back significantly — but in this case, CNN notes that considering the case was settled as a matter of state law, there’s seemingly no option for the decision to even be appealed to any higher level in the first place.

The University of California-Irvine’s election law expert Rick Hasen noted:

‘Because this is decided as a matter of state constitutional law, it would be very hard to find a federal issue to take this to the United States Supreme Court for reversal.’

Bizarre, twisted district lines are not the only way in which the GOP have consistently rolled out their efforts against the vote. In numerous states, they’ve also purged large quantities of names from state voter rolls, although in some cases — like that of Texas — the overseer of that operation has been pressured out of the job. In that instance, it was the Texas Secretary of State, who eventually resigned.

An ironic point is that President Donald Trump and his allies have consistently sounded alarms about supposed election fraud rocking the United States — but the real culprits are within their own party.

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