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Court Deems North Carolina’s State Legislature Maps Unconstitutional

A three-judge panel unanimously ruled that new maps need to be drawn before the 2020 election.

North Carolina’s maps for the state legislature were reportedly deemed unconstitutional Tuesday by a panel of judges that ordered new maps to be drawn before the 2020 elections. According to The News & Observer, the judges unanimously struck down the maps due to them being drawn on a partisan basis. The judges, in their ruling, wrote that the maps were “carefully crafted,” and essentially dictated the “election outcomes in a significant number of legislative districts and, ultimately, the majority control of the General Assembly.” Republican Senate leader Phil Berger told the newspaper he didn’t plan on appealing the court’s decision, but would “respect the court’s decision and finally put this divisive battle behind us.” The struck-down maps were drawn by the state’s GOP-led legislature in 2017 to replace maps from 2011—which were also drawn by a Republican-majority legislature and deemed unconstitutional.