Superior Court Judges Order New NC District Maps Drawn In 2 Weeks

NORTH CAROLINA — North Carolina’s voting district maps are unconstitutional, according to a panel of three Superior Court judges, who have given General Assembly lawmakers two weeks to redraw currently gerrymandered maps without using political data to do so.

Tuesday’s order means a redo of the GOP-drawn state legislative maps drawn in 2017 that replaced 2011 maps drawn by the party that were also deemed unconstitutional.

According to the judicial panel, the GOP-led General Assembly redrew the legislative maps in 2017 with a partisan intent to create districts that perpetuated their party’s control, and “deployed this intent with surgical precision to carefully craft maps that grouped many voters into districts predominantly based upon partisan criteria by packing and cracking Democratic voters to dilute their collective voting strength,” the judges said.

The effect, they said, was that in almost all scenarios, the GOP would maintain control of both chambers of the General Assembly.

“In other words, the Court finds that in many election environments, it is the carefully crafted maps, and not the will of the voters, that dictate the election outcomes in a significant number of legislative districts and, ultimately, the majority control of the General Assembly,” the ruling said.

Republicans say they won’t appeal the decision, with GOP Senate leader Phil Berger saying, “It’s time to move on,” the Charlotte Observer reported.

The maps are to be redrawn by a Sept. 18 deadline.

The 357-page ruling may be found here.