Maybe you’ve heard about the State Integrity Investigation that scored each state on the strength of its laws and practices governing campaign finances, lobbying regulations, ethics, access to government records, redistricting, etc. Overall, North Carolina earned a C- and ranked 18th best among the 50 states, but in some areas it scored an A, in [...]
A press release today from Democracy North Carolina begins: Statements from election officials across the state provide new reasons for concern about the controversial district lines that zigzag through and split up hundreds of precincts to create the new district boundaries for state legislators and North Carolina’s 13 members of Congress. The election professionals are [...]
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 [...]
Here are stories about two ways to disenfranchise voters: One, gut the Voting Rights Act and enact voter suppression measures that especially handicap a key constituency of your opponent’s political party. Noted constitutional scholar Richard Hasen has this op-ed in the New York Times about what should be done. Two, draw the new district lines after [...]
Democracy North Carolina will join three other nonpartisan organizations in filing a lawsuit in state court on Friday that challenges the constitutionality of the new redistricting plans. Late yesterday, the US Department of Justice said it would not object to the plans, using a relatively narrow set of criteria to “preclear” the maps in the 40 [...]
For North Carolinians concerned about the maze of bills in the General Assembly designed to make voting harder, here’s a link to a Democracy NC factsheet that provides an update of each bill’s status. The NC General Assembly is set to reconvene in November, when it could take up any of these bills – or [...]
The NC FreeEnterprise Foundation has two entries that provide a detailed look at the 12 NC Senate members and 28 NC House members who are “double bunked” by the proposed General Assembly district maps for the 2012-2020 elections. Given how the new lines are drawn, the homes of these 40 legislators are placed in districts [...]
For the redistricting junkie, FairVote has crafted a Congressional map for North Carolina that offers a completely different way to elect 13 members to Congress, using three multi-member super districts and proportional representation. It comes with an analysis of the Republican plan adopted by the NC General Assembly - “one of the nation’s most extreme [...]
Catawba College professor of politics and history Dr. Michael Blitzer has sorted through the data for the General Assembly districts proposed by the Republican majority. His conclusion: 90% of the seats are drawn with a decidedly partisan tilt, heavily toward the Republicans, nearly guaranteeing that party majority control of both legislative chambers for the next [...]
The NC FreeEnterprise Foundation, a conservative business association, provides another view of the new Congressional districts proposed by Republicans. It says “the maps heavily favor the election of a solid majority Republican contingent to the U.S. House of Representatives from North Carolina in 2012, if the maps are approved and implemented ‘as is.’” And it [...]