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Federal court orders new NC legislative elections in 2017

Athanasius68 said:
So to be clear:
The voting rights act required affected states (including North Carolina) to draw districts in such a way so as to not dilute racial voting strengths. NC, governed by Democrats, proceded to do that. The result being that numerous black legislators were elected.
In 2010, the GOP wins control of the legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. In 2011 it needs to redo the districts as a result of the Census. It does so in such a way that it increases the strength of black districts by placing more blacks in them.
And now the claim is that this is racial gerrymandering.
It seems that the complaint is more that the reforms make it more difficult for the Democrats to win back the legislature, than the GOP or conservatives engaging in racial politicing.
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It pulled those black votes from other districts to specifically pool them together and specifically because of race. If you have 2000 voters in 10 different districts who vote a particular way, that's an average of 200 votes per candidate in those different districts. However if you group those 2000 voters into 1 or 2 districts, those other 8 or 9 districts have now each lost 200 voters for a particular type of candidate. Yes that one or two districts is going to almost certainly get that candidate in office, but by a whole lot more votes than needed.
 
Athanasius68 said:
So argument is that black voters in North Carolina will vote a certain way. If they live in areas that are perhaps not as heavily African-American, they are being disenfranchised.
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This is the assumption that was made to redistrict in the first place.
 
Athanasius68 said:
Because the state was MANDATED to do so by the Voting Rights Act-- you know, so as to increase African-American representation in state legislature and in Congress.
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Not in this way, which is why the state lost when it was challenged because they relied mainly on race to redistrict despite the law stating that it should not be the main basis.
 
CriticalThought said:
That is absolutely not true

If anything they did the opposite.

Voting Rights Roundup: Federal judges strike a major blow against partisan redistricting

Please cite your source.
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Not understanding what your opinion piece has to do with what I said.
An objective of the Voting Rights Act was to increase the numbers of African-Americans in political office. The opinion piece cited argued what I said-- it's all about frustration that a particular political party has difficulty getting into office now.
 
Athanasius68 said:
Not understanding what your opinion piece has to do with what I said.
An objective of the Voting Rights Act was to increase the numbers of African-Americans in political office. The opinion piece cited argued what I said-- it's all about frustration that a particular political party has difficulty getting into office now.
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Intellectually dishonest much? Or are you simply that ignorant of how racial gerrymandering works?
 
CriticalThought said:
Intellectually dishonest much? Or are you simply that ignorant of how racial gerrymandering works?
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Yawn.
Follow the law... Racial gerrymandering
Don't follow the law... Racial gerrymandering
 
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