RALEIGH, N.C. (CN) — After a group of Black and Latino voters filed a lawsuit saying North Carolina voting maps violate the Constitution, state House Speaker Tim Moore slammed the effort as a "desperate" attempt to sow chaos in state elections.
In the Monday lawsuit, the 18 plaintiffs targeted congressional election maps enacted in late October, claiming they dilute minority votes and violate the 14th and 15th Amendments and run the Voting Rights Act.
“By strategically packing and cracking North Carolina’s minority voters, the 2023 Congressional Plan entrenches the state’s white majority and erases the gains made by voters of color in the 2020 and 2022 election cycles,” the plaintiffs wrote in the lawsuit, which names Moore and other lawmakers who played a role in the redistricting process, along with the North Carolina Board of Elections.
Moore shot back at the claims on Monday.
“It has taken Democratic activists over a month after these maps were approved by the General Assembly to concoct these baseless allegations,” Moore said on his website. “This is a desperate attempt to throw chaos into North Carolina’s elections, on the first day of candidate filing no less. We are fully confident that these maps are going to be used in this election and every election this decade.”
The plaintiffs argue the new maps move voters in and out of voting districts by race to “dismantle existing minority opportunity districts across the state,” and is part of the state's "long tradition" fracturing minority votes into "gerrymandered districts designed to minimize their voting strength.”
They requested that a three-judge panel hear the case and are seeking an order concerning Congressional Districts 1, 6, 12 and 14, which they label unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered.
Congressional District 1, for instance, “subordinates traditional districting principles in order to move minority communities in and out of the district with the effect of weakening an existing minority opportunity district,” the plaintiffs said. “Race was the predominant factor in the creation of CD-1.”
The plaintiffs say the congressional plan disregards geographical boundaries, political subdivisions and traditional districting principles to move minority voters from one district to another, eliminating existing minority districts.
New districts make it difficult for minority voters to elect candidates they choose, diluting their votes, and Congressional Districts 6 and 14 remove existing minority districts, the voters claim.
During public hearings voters encouraged the General Assembly to consult racial data in drawing maps, in order to prevent vote dilution. But Representative Destin Hall, the chair of the House committee on redistricting, said racial data was not factored into the map-drawing process.
The lawsuit is not the first over the controversial election maps. In November, Black voters sued the Board of Elections saying their redrawn districts split voters in the “Black Belt counties” of northeastern North Carolina.
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