Voting Rights

SCSJ Executive Director Anita Earls spoke at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC about the impact of Congressional redistricting on minority populations. Watch the coverage on C-SPAN.

The drawing of legislative district boundaries is arguably among the most self-interested and least transparent systems in American democracy. Every ten years redistricting authorities, usually state legislatures, redraw congressional and legislative lines in accordance with Census reapportionment and population shifts within states. Most state redistricting authorities are in the midst of their redistricting process, while others have already finished redrawing their state and congressional boundaries. A number of initiatives—from public mapping competitions to independent shadow commissions—have been launched to open up the process to the public during this round of redrawing district lines. On Monday, July 18, SCSJ Executive Director Anita Earls will be speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. about fair Congressional redistricting. The event will be covered live on C-SPAN.

In response to the release of the proposed congressional maps, SCSJ has posted its own map for comparison. The SCSJ map is pictured below, and more data can be found in the "Press Release" section of this website. We believe this map is fair, compact and recognizes communities of interest.

Yesterday Governor Bev Perdue vetoed the Restore Confidence in Government Act, the North Carolina counterpart to a nationwide push by newly elected conservative legislatures to create similar bills across the country. Nineteen other states have considered Voter ID bills this year alone, many of which also place restrictions on early voting. Each bill has been introduced by Republicans. South Carolina passed a similar bill requiring photo identification to vote which was ultimately signed into law by Governor Nikki Haley despite calls for a veto. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicle statistics indicate that as many as 180,000 voters could be disenfranchised under the law. As of last month, there were no cases of voter fraud in South Carolina. Perdue ultimately had to choose between legislating against the relatively few and already identifiable cases of fraud or the thousands of voters who could find themselves unable to vote due to technicalities. In this case, Perdue sided with the voters. "North Carolinians who are eligible to vote have a constitutionally guaranteed right to cast their ballots, and no one should put up obstacles to citizens exercising that right," the governor said in a statement. "We must always be vigilant in protecting the integrity of our elections. But requiring every voter to present a government-issued photo ID is not the way to do it."

On Tuesday, June 7 between approximately 5:45 – 6:00 p.m., the N.C. House of Representatives Appropriation committee passed the strict photo ID version of HB-351. Among other barriers to equal voting, this bill would require all voters to present a photo ID at the polls, which would be particularly disenfranchising to elderly, youth and minority voters. The bill passed on a party line vote of 50-28; of the four swing Democrats on the Appropriations committee, Rep. Tim Spear and Rep. Bill Owens voted against the bill with all the other Democrats on the committee. Rep. Jim Crawford and Rep. Bill Brisson were absent. This information is indicative of a successful veto from Gov. Bev Perdue. At 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 8, the Voter ID bill was brought before the House with no debate being allowed for the second reading. The bill passed second reading along party lines with a vote of 67-50. Speaker Tillis said that debate would be permitted for the third reading. All Democrats, including Hill, Crawford, Spear, Owens and Brisson, voted against the bill, preventing a veto-proof majority. Update: On Thursday, June 9, the Voter ID bill passed the NC House along party lines. It will now move to be heard in the Senate. Encourage Gov. Perdue to veto this bill when it reaches her desk. It's not too late to voice your opinion on this bill. Contact your local representative at 919.733.4111 and Gov. Bev Perdue at 800.662.7952.

As a country built on the democratic process, the United States—and the South in particular—has had to overcome systematic hurtles to ensure that elections were fair, all-encompassing, and as representative as possible. Perhaps most notably, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was created by Congress to outlaw discriminatory voting practices that disproportionately affect minority populations. At the time, this looked like removing literacy tests and other direct barriers to voting. However, indirect barriers and their effects are still being felt throughout the South. One of the most pervasive examples of this is an at-large voting system. This winner-take-all approach involves each representative being elected by the majority of people in the city as a whole. In this system, if a district has a 30 percent minority population, their likelihood of electing their representative of choice is slim, since they do not make up a majority. In a single-member district electoral system, this same population stands a much greater chance of being equally represented. If this city was separated into 10 fairly-drawn districts, the minority population would likely make up a majority in three of them. Allison Riggs, a staff attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, went before the Hickory City Council to speak against this system. “At-large elections, even in the slightly modified form here in Hickory, are often a structural barrier to the ability of minority voters to participate in the political process and elect their candidates of choice,” Riggs said. “This kind of defeat is precisely the policy justification for a move to a true single-member electoral district system.” Unfortunately, this is not the case in towns such as Hickory, NC. During the 2009 municipal elections, an African American candidate, Z. Anne Hoyle won the primary in District 4, over a white candidate. She then was defeated in the city-wide election where voters other than those who resided in her district voted for the white candidate. In Ward 4, Hoyle won the primary with 59.5 percent of the vote. Her closest rival, also an African American, received 40.5 percent. In the general election, Hoyle only received 29.21 percent of the vote.