A new legal challenge has been filed against a gerrymandered Congressional district map in North Carolina. Gerrymandering refers to the manipulation of the legislative district line-drawing process for political ends, which (among other troubling possibilities) can entail politicians putting their own supporters in the majority in as many individual districts as possible, no matter their portion of the overall population. As the required round of redistricting following the most recent census has gotten underway, Republicans in states including North Carolina have backed corrupt maps. The North Carolina map at issue gives Republicans control of some 70 percent of the state’s Congressional seats, despite the fact that Trump didn’t even win 50 percent of the vote in the state in 2020.
In other words, the North Carolina map does not appear to appropriately reflect its population. The new challenge has been filed as an addendum to a previous court challenge against prior legislative district lines. As explained by the voting rights organization Democracy Docket:
‘Given that the case was not closed following the 2020 elections, the plaintiffs submitted a motion to file a supplemental complaint in order to challenge the congressional map passed following the release of 2020 census data, similarly arguing the map is an extreme partisan gerrymander that entrenches Republican power.’
🚨BREAKING: North Carolina voters who successfully challenged 2016 congressional map file a supplemental complaint challenging the 2021 map for also being a partisan gerrymander. Proud that my team is fighting alongside @RedistrictFdn for fair maps!https://t.co/uR1PNCqGff
— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) November 5, 2021
Other states where corrupt district maps have been promoted by Republican leaders include Texas, which added two Congressional districts after the recent census because of population growth. The majority of that growth was due to non-white residents, but white voters are set to be in control in both of the newly crafted districts. Texas Republicans also lowered by one the number of Congressional districts where Hispanic voters are in the majority, and they did the same against Black voters — leaving the latter group without a single House district where they’re in the majority. And it doesn’t stop there: in Alabama, Black voters are in the majority in a single Congressional district out of seven in a newly enacted map, despite the fact that Black residents comprise over a fourth of the state’s population.
