GOP Served With Lawsuit To Stop Gerrymandering Targeting Black Voters

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How does a party with little support from America’s majority remain in power? They Gerrymander every state, making each district predominantly white, middle class, and Republican by allowing them to absorb areas where people of color live.

Such is the case with the latest voting districts voted in by a majority GOP congress in North Carolina, where Democrats hold just three out of fourteen districts and areas with a large percentage of black voters has been contained to very small, urban areas. A civil rights organization called North Carolina League of Conservation Voters has filed a lawsuit against the state in response to its passage.

‘On Wednesday, another lawsuit was filed in North Carolina state court challenging the state’s newly-passed legislative and congressional maps drawn following the release of 2020 census data. The complaint, filed on behalf of the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters and a group of voters consisting of former elected officials, civil rights leaders and math and computer science professors, argues that the new state House, Senate and congressional maps dilute the voting strength of Black voters and entrench Republican power across the state.’

The lawsuit alleges that the black vote was purposefully compressed down to the smallest areas, making them even more the population with the least electoral power and depriving them of fair representations. While the measures intentionally suppress black representation, their purpose is to win Republican majorities in state and federal legislative bodies. The purpose is separate from the results, which further marginalizes an already long-marginalized community in North Carolina and across the country.

‘The complaint alleges that the new districts crack and pack Democratic voters across the state in order to solidify Republican power, despite a nearly even split among Republicans and Democrats in recent voting trends.’

 

 

 

The lawsuit gives three main arguments against the gerrymandering practices applied to the latest congressional map and asks that it be suspended during the next election. Across the country, voter suppression bills and gerrymandered maps threaten the Democratic party and repress the ability of black voters to attain fair representation.

‘Given the prevalence of racially-polarized voting in the state, “Black citizens’ ability to attain anything approaching fair representation in the General Assembly and in North Carolina’s congressional delegation thus hinges on fair districting” — which was intentionally not done here, according to the complaint, partly because the legislators allegedly refused to incorporate racial or partisan analysis into their map-drawing process.’

Image via Five Thirty-Eight