Case Summary
Formerly N.C. NAACP v. Berger Filed
Southern Coalition for Social Justice challenged North Carolina's 2023 congressional and state legislative voting maps on behalf of the North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, Common Cause, and eight voters (Mitzi Reynolds Turner, Dawn Daly-Mack, Calvin Jones, Joan Chavis, Linda Sutton, and Syene Jasmin), alongside co-counsel from Hogan Lovells LLP and NAACP. In their complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina on Dec. 19, 2023, the Plaintiffs alleged all three maps diminished the power of Black voters across the state in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
On March 18, 2024, a three-judge panel consolidated N.C. NAACP v. Berger with a related congressional map challenge named Williams v. Hall.
On April 8, 2025, the three-judge panel dismissed Plaintiffs' one-person-one-vote claims (which argued the maps were improperly malapportioned based on partisanship) but found plaintiffs had satisfied standing to bring their claims and allowed their remaining constitutional and federal law challenges to proceed to trial. Plaintiffs presented testimony and other evidence in a multi-week trial in June and July 2025 before a panel of federal court judges.
Following the trial and with a final decision still outstanding, North Carolina lawmakers made an unprecedented move to reconvene and re-draw certain Congressional districts in eastern North Carolina. Specifically, the new map targeted Black voters by diluting their electoral power in Congressional District 1.
After lawmakers passed the rushed redraw in October, plaintiffs returned to court with a supplemental complaint challenging the 2025 redrawn districts as racially discriminatory and retaliatory and moved for a preliminary injunction to halt implementation of that mid-decade gerrymandered map. Plaintiffs’ attorneys were joined by additional co-counsel from the ACLU Voting Rights Project and ACLU-NC.
In November 2025, the three-judge panel ruled that North Carolina may use an extremely gerrymandered Congressional map in the 2026 elections and dismissed Plaintiffs’ original 2023 challenges. Unfortunately, this outcome puts in place a map that shifts thousands of Black voters out of their communities of representation, shielding politicians from accountability, and attempts to further reduce the competitiveness of elections in the state. Following the ruling, the Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit — with the defendants’ consent. Though the decision will not be appealed, the Plaintiffs remain committed to pursuing fair and equal electoral districts outside of court and ensuring every North Carolinian has an equal voice in our elections.
Why it's Important
Legislators imposed these discriminatory districts in an intentionally rushed and deficient process that denied the opportunity for meaningful engagement to minority representatives and citizens, and showed clear disregard for the interests, needs, and desires of North Carolina's Black voters. This process was calibrated to frustrate judicial review of the maps before the 2024 election. Legislators targeted predominantly Black voting precincts with surgical precision throughout the state in drawing and enacting the 2023 plans - at the expense of traditional redistricting criteria - to achieve preferred district lines that diminish Black voters' ability to elect candidates of their choice at all levels of government. The effect of these actions is to inequitably reduce the electoral influence of Black lives in North Carolina in violation of the law and the United States Constitution.
Record-breaking participation can overcome gerrymanders, and ongoing efforts to protect elections and encourage voter engagement will honor North Carolina voters by allowing them to elect representatives of their choosing, regardless of political affiliation or strategic attempts to dilute their voices.
