The voting process revealed effects of partisan gerrymandering.                                                       

By Claire Ferris

With a little less than a year until the next presidential election, many citizens are focused on the national candidates. Though the perspectives from candidates might bring change to our country on a large scale, there has already been political conflict within our own state.

On September 10th, 2019, a special election took place for North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District. The 9th congressional district encompasses a large portion of N.C.’s southern land, with citizens voting from Mecklenburg, Cumberland, Anson, Union, Richmond, Scotland, Bladen and Robeson counties. The candidates were Republican Dan Bishop, Democrat Dan McCready, Libertarian Jeff Scott, and Green Party member Allen Smith, with Dan Bishop ultimately receiving 50.7% of the vote.

In more recent years, the examples of gerrymandering have become more extreme.

The election was initially held on November 6, 2018, where Republican candidate Mark Harris — who did not run in the special election due to health concerns — defeated Dan McCready by a small margin. The verity of this result, however, was challenged by allegations of absentee ballot fraud, which appeared to skew the results in favor of Harris. In February of 2019, the state election board held a hearing to assess the situation, and found evidence that indicated attempts at concealing the scheme, leading to absentee fraud from state investigators. The board issued the special election soon after the trial’s conclusion; Harris promptly announced his decision not to run.

With the way North Carolina’s congressional districts were drawn, Harris — and in the case of the special election, Bishop — should have logically won the majority vote due to a majority of Republican voters in the district. This is made possible, however, in part by the fact that North Carolina has a history of partisan gerrymandering — manipulating congressional boundaries — that has recently aided Republican lawmakers in their electoral successes.

In more recent years, the examples of gerrymandering have become more extreme, with the redistributing after the 2010 election serving as one of the harshest examples of partisan gerrymandering in the country. In 2010, Republicans also won a majority in North Carolina state legislature, which contributed to the amplified nature of our state’s gerrymandering crisis. Though Republicans in our state today are the most active party that contributes to the issue of gerrymandering, Democrats also partook in gerrymandering before the 2010 election. The difference is in the racial implications of the Republicans’ actions; current partisan gerrymandering is not only skewing electoral results, but it is also victimizing minority groups within N.C., such as African Americans, in order to ensure a Republican majority.

A Wake County court ordered on September 3rd of this year that the districts had to be redrawn by September 18th in attempts to reverse the damage and injustice done through partisan gerrymandering. Though proponents of redistricting are hopeful, they also know this process won’t necessarily directly impact the result of future state elections. In the case of the 2010 election, the Democratic gerrymandering did not ensure a Democratic majority; in fact, that year was a turning point for the Republican Party in our state, allowing them to begin their aggressive gerrymandering to ensure future electoral successes.

Though the result of redistricting is currently unclear, regardless of current party ideology or loyalty, we must begin to grapple with the idea that North Carolina is becoming increasingly mixed in regards to political parties, with Republican and Democrat ideals being represented simultaneously more equally and at larger volumes.