LOD: One Reason for Delay

Nonprofit groups, including Democracy North Carolina, are asking a three-judge panel to push back the 2012 election schedule while the judges consider the merits of their challenge to the Republican redistricting plans for General Assembly and Congressional districts in North Carolina. Rather than use the plans in a May primary that could be postponed, it’s better to decide if the plans are as obnoxious and unconstitutional as the nonprofits and a group of Democratic plaintiffs claim. The motion for a preliminary injunction was filed Friday and could be heard as early as this week when the judges convene on another aspect of the case. Our side – the plaintiffs challenging the plans – filed 380 pages of affidavits in support of the motion. Among the many reasons to overturn the plans, several county elections officials say the new plans slice up too many precincts with zigzagging district lines, putting voters in the same neighborhood in multiple varieties of different political districts. That will create confusion among voters and poll workers and elevate the risks of tainted elections that have to be rerun. Our affidavit provides loads of data to make the point, summarized briefly in a letter-to-the-editor about split precincts. One point in our affidavit not in the letter explains the threat to secret ballots from carving a little slice out of a precinct and placing it in a different political district (see paragraphs 35-36).