Former North Carolina Supreme Court justice Bob Orr has been on a mission to attack, weaken, embarrass and injure his former chosen North Carolina Republican Party for many years. However the former GOP justice has now arguably made a dangerous, frivolous, bad-faith legal argument in the North Carolina courts over redistricting. If he actually won...
No one seems to like them: The parties endure them; the voting public suffers them; the cynical resent them; and candidates would wish them over yesterday if assured victory. Yet, they are necessary as an absolutely critical part of the whole electoral process. We’re talking, of course, about primaries. On March 5, 2024, North Carolina...
This week, Democrats in the N.C. Senate filed a bill aimed at curbing defections from their party — clearly in response to the high-profile departure of Democrat-turned-Republican state Rep. Tricia Cotham of Mecklenburg County. The bill’s primary sponsors are Democrat state Sens. Natasha Marcus of Mecklenburg County, Michael Garrett of Guilford, and Sydney Batch of...
The NC Supreme Court was certainly digging to find reasons to reject the lower court’s ruling on the NC General Assembly’s redistricting maps. One of the questions directed at the NCGA’s counsel that stood out to me came from Associate Justice Anita Earls when she was basically advocating for proportionality among political parties. She used...
A liberal UNC-Chapel Hill professor testified Tuesday that GOP-crafted election maps represent a conservative white backlash against rising black political power. Professor James Leloudis appeared on behalf of Democratic Party-aligned plaintiffs working to overturn voting maps passed by the Republican-led General Assembly, arguing that the maps are unfair to black North Carolinians. Leloudis, a UNC-CH...
Statewide vote totals in legislative and congressional elections offer little useful information.
People who are serious about changing North Carolina's election mapmaking process should avoid critical mistakes.
I have written about gerrymandering in these pages before, but the recent Superior Court ruling that the state’s legislative districts constitute an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander makes me want to do it again. This is a prime example of judicial overreach and regrettable encroachment of quantitative social science into legal decision making. I don’t think there’s...
An attorney for N.C. Republicans offers advice to help future mapmakers avoid legal pitfalls.
People complaining that a closely split electorate fails to produce a closely split congressional delegation are taking issue with a basic element of our centuries-old electoral process.
Those who advocate competitive election districts should brace themselves for widely varying election results.
