North Carolina Gerrymandering Trial Begins

For Immediate Release:
January 3, 2022
Contact:
Brooke Lillard
lillard@redistrictingfoundation.org

Washington, D.C. — Today, the trial in Harper v. Hall began before a three-judge panel of the Wake County Superior Court. The suit establishes that the congressional and state legislative maps enacted by the North Carolina General Assembly are partisan gerrymanders in violation of the Free Elections, Equal Protection, and Freedom of Speech and Assembly Clauses of the North Carolina Constitution. The National Redistricting Foundation (NRF) is supporting North Carolina voters who filed the case in November of last year.

“The maps put in place by the North Carolina General Assembly are very obviously the result of extreme partisan gerrymandering, and today’s trial testimony provided overwhelming evidence showing just that,” said Marina Jenkins, Director of Litigation and Policy for the NRF. “North Carolina is a highly competitive state, yet Republicans are attempting to pack and crack their way into unchecked power by diminishing the votes of the state’s most populous and diverse communities. That simply does not comport with the constitutional protections provided to North Carolina voters.”

The Harper plaintiffs presented four nonpartisan experts today as part of their case-in-chief: Dr. Jowei Chen, Dr. Christopher Cooper, Dr. Jonathan Mattingly, and Dr. Wesley Pegden. Drs. Chen, Mattingly, and Pegden used computer simulations to demonstrate how the enacted plans are extreme outliers in comparison to unbiased computer-simulated plans. Their analysis clearly indicated that the enacted plans could have only resulted from an intentional effort to secure a manipulated Republican advantage and could not have naturally resulted from the political geography of the state. Dr. Cooper, an expert in political science with a specialty in the political geography and political history of North Carolina, testified to the extreme nature of the choices made by the General Assembly in enacting the new districting plans, explaining the detailed images of individual districts to highlight the significant packing and cracking of Democratic voters throughout the state.

Trial is scheduled to continue tomorrow and Wednesday with closing arguments on January 6. A livestream of the remaining proceedings can be viewed here.

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