If you look at your sample ballot for 2024, you might be among the many North Carolina voters who will notice that your congressional district has changed. Even if the district number is the same as it was in 2022, you may seem some unfamiliar names on the ballot. What’s going on?
Normally, states redraw legislative and congressional maps once a decade to adjust for population shifts and changes.
But North Carolina doesn’t always work that way. This year, North Carolina voters will vote based on different maps than in the 2022 election. Court decisions have spurred the change.
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In 2021, the North Carolina General Assembly redrew maps to reorganize congressional, state House and state Senate districts, based on U.S. Census data. But the legislature was quickly sued, on claims that the maps gave an unfair advantage to Republicans and a disadvantage to Black voters.
Those legislative maps were never used in an election and were ultimately replaced by maps created by the state Supreme Court. With a change in the makeup of the court, legislators eventually won the right to draw new districts more to their liking for the 2024 election.
Congressional redistricting rules
Several rules govern redistricting. Under the North Carolina Constitution, state Senate and state House maps must include districts with nearly equal populations, made up of contiguous, or undivided, territory. Congressional maps must also include districts with nearly equal populations, under the U.S. Constitution.
The state Constitution also directs mapmakers to avoid splitting counties when they can, but that has since become mathematically impossible. Court precedent now requires North Carolina lawmakers to “preserve county lines to the maximum extent possible, except to the extent counties must be divided to comply” with several sections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The Voting Rights Act is designed to ensure people of color have equal voting rights. Historically, redistricting has been one strategy to dilute the voting power of minority voters when they have tended to support the political party that isn’t in control of the General Assembly.
Through the mid-20th century, Democrats controlled the General Assembly and many minority voters supported Republicans. But since the 1960s, voter loyalty has reversed. Since Republicans took control of the legislature in the 2010s, districting along racial and partisan lines has generally befitted Republican candidates.
Mapmakers may have crammed minority voters — which includes racial and language groups — into one or a few districts in order to minimize their overall voting strength, in a practice called packing.
Alternatively, they may have split minority populations across as many districts as possible, so they wouldn’t have majority power to elect their preferred candidate in any. That practice is called cracking.
The VRA tries to avoid this by requiring the creation of some majority-minority districts, districts where a majority of voting age residents are members of minority groups. It bans any electoral practice or procedure that dilutes the voting strength of minority groups.
A series of lawsuits
In November 2021, several lawsuits were filed against members of the legislature involved in redistricting.
They were eventually consolidated in Moore v. Harper, which alleged that new legislative maps were extreme partisan gerrymanders that gave Republicans an unfair advantage.
Partisan gerrymandering is the practice of redrawing maps in a way that dilutes the voting power of a certain party. Gerrymandering often results in weird district shapes, since mapmakers may be going out of their way to include or exclude certain populations in districts.
A group of voters, eventually joined by watchdog group Common Cause, alleged that the state Senate and state House maps “packed” and “cracked” Democratic voters to solidify Republican majorities, while the congressional map created 10 safe Republican districts and three safe Democratic districts, despite North Carolina’s relatively even Republican-Democrat split at the time.
By February 2022, the case had made its way to the North Carolina Supreme Court, which ruled 4-3 that extreme partisan gerrymanders were illegal under the North Carolina Constitution’s free elections clause, among other sections.
“In North Carolina, we have long understood that our Constitution’s promise that ‘(a)ll elections shall be free’ means that every vote must count equally,” Justice Robin Hudson wrote in the majority opinion.
Hudson added that extreme partisan gerrymandering prevents the will of the people from being accurately reflected in the legislature, so voters aren’t necessarily able to hold their representatives accountable for unfair maps by voting them out.
“Accordingly, the only way that partisan gerrymandering can be addressed is through the courts, the branch which has been tasked with authoritatively interpreting and enforcing the North Carolina Constitution,” she wrote.
The legislature redrew maps. Its new congressional map did not meet court scrutiny, and a special master team made up of bipartisan experts outside of North Carolina was tasked with redrawing the map, resulting in the one that was used for the 2022 election.
The legislature’s state House map was accepted, while its state Senate map was eventually struck down by North Carolina courts.
Meanwhile, North Carolina legislators named in the case weren’t satisfied with the original NC Supreme Court ruling, and asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the case. They presented a theory called the Independent state legislature theory, which holds that the U.S. Constitution’s Election Clause gives states exclusive power to make electoral decisions, like drawing legislative maps, without court interference.
On June 27, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the independent state legislature theory, 6-3. The federal justices’ ruling affirmed judicial review, as well as the authority of the North Carolina Supreme Court to decide whether to strike down redistricted maps because of partisan gerrymandering,
However, one more wrinkle led to new maps for this year. Before the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its ruling, the 2022 North Carolina elections caused a major change in the state’s highest court. The court shifted from a 4-3 Democratic majority to a 5-2 Republican majority with two key Republican wins.
The new court granted a request by North Carolina Republicans to rehear Moore v. Harper. In April 2023, the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed its previous decision, and ruled that the state Constitution didn’t allow the courts to rule on partisan gerrymandering claims.
In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Paul Newby ruled that the separation of powers forbid the judicial branch from interfering in matters the Constitution assigns to another branch of government.
The courts should avoid getting involved with “political questions,” he wrote. Instead, the people decide those through their representatives in the General Assembly.
“Such engagement in policy issues forces courts to take sides in political battles and undermines public trust and confidence in the judiciary,” Newby continued. “Choosing political winners and losers creates a perception that courts are another political branch.”
New NC congressional maps for 2024
After their state court victory, North Carolina Republicans returned to the drawing board, once again.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on whether partisan gerrymandering is acceptable under the federal Constitution, and the original North Carolina Supreme Court ruling was reversed, lawmakers had the power to do so.
The legislature enacted new state House, state Senate and congressional maps in October 2023. Those maps are the ones in place for this year’s election.
But don’t get too used to them. They may or may not last for the remainder of the decade.
Several lawsuits were filed after the 2023 maps were enacted.
One, North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP v. Berger, was filed by the state NAACP, individual Black voters and Common Cause.
They allege that each of the new maps violates the Voting Rights Act by intentionally diluting the Black vote. They claim that:
- The 1st and 2nd districts in the state Senate “crack” Black voters across two districts, pairing them with white coastal communities;
- Black voters previously in the 7th state Senate district were moved to the 8th district where their votes are less powerful;
- In the state House, Black voters in northeastern districts — 4th, 5th, 7th, 10th, 12th, 24th, 25th and 32nd — are divided in a way that allows white populations to have easy majorities;
- The 35th state House district in Wake County has an artificially low Black population and high white population;
- The 71st state House district in Winston-Salem is “packed” with Black voters, preventing outside districts from having enough to elect their preferred candidates;
- The 1st congressional district dilutes the strength of Black voters; and
- Congressional districts in the Piedmont Triad — 5th, 6th, 8th, 10th districts — “crack” Black populations.
The plaintiffs asked a federal court in North Carolina to order the legislature to enact new maps by the 2026 elections. The court has not made a ruling in the case.
Redistricting is a complex process, and has been subject to litigation in 28 states since the latest U.S. Census, as well as multiple times in North Carolina since the 1990s. Things could always change. Never get too comfortable with the current maps, and make sure to check your sample ballots far in advance of voting.
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