Federal judge denies Black voters’ request to throw out new Senate districts in northeastern NC

A federal District Court judge has denied two Black voters’ request to stop the use of new Senate districts in northeastern North Carolina under the claim that they dilute Black voting power. 

The voters are appealing U.S. District Court Judge James C. Dever III’s order to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. 

Rodney D. Pierce, a social science teacher who lives in Halifax County, and Martin County resident Moses Mathews filed the suit in November, claiming that the legislature ignored the history of racially polarized voting in northeastern North Carolina, federal law, and a state Supreme Court opinion to draw Senate districts in eastern North Carolina that dilute Black votes, NC Newsline reported. (Pierce is running in a Democratic primary for a state House district.)

During a hearing earlier this month, Dever seemed cool to the request to stop the state from using the Senate districts the Republican-led legislature approved last year along party lines. 

Dever wrote in his Friday order that it is too late to stop elections under the approved plans. Candidate filing has closed and absentee ballots are already being mailed. 

The U.S. Supreme Court established a three-pronged test to determine whether minority votes are being diluted. 

• The minority group is large and compact enough to form a district. 
• It is politically cohesive. 
• The white majority votes as a bloc to defeat the minority group’s preferred candidate. 

The plaintiffs showed only that minority voters are politically cohesive, but failed to demonstrate the Senate districts meet the other two criteria for vote dilution, Dever wrote.  

In his order, Dever said the plaintiffs did not have any proof that the legislature was required to create a district in northeastern North Carolina that complies with the federal Voting Rights Act. 

The legislature did not conduct a study of racially polarized voting. Republican redistricting leaders said they did not need one. 

Federal lawsuits from 2011 to to 2016 “helped to show that there was not legally significant racially polarized voting in North Carolina, including in the counties in northeast North Carolina at issue in this case,” Dever wrote. 

“At this stage of the case, plaintiffs fail to demonstrate legally significant racially polarized voting in northeast North Carolina in the counties at issue in this case,” he added. 

Dever agreed with Republican legislators’ expert John Alford that partisanship better explains polarized voting than race, because Black voters support Democrats and a majority of white voters support Republicans. 

“Dr. Alford persuasively shows that black North Carolinians are not more likely to support black Democratic candidates than white Democratic candidates,” Dever wrote. “Dr. Alford also persuasively shows that white North Carolinians are not less likely to support black Democratic candidates than white Democratic candidates.”