Voting Rights

North Carolina voting-rights advocates sued Tuesday to overturn all of the redistricting plans drawn by Republicans and being used starting with the 2024 elections, saying legislative leaders unlawfully weakened the electoral influence of Black voters. The North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, Common Cause and eight Black residents filed a lawsuit in federal court. They accuse GOP legislative leaders of intentionally moving this fall boundary lines for General Assembly and congressional districts in part so that many Black voters will be prevented from having the opportunity to elect their preferred candidates. Instead, the plaintiffs contend, Black voting blocs are submerged into districts with white majorities that don't normally vote for Black candidates. For decades, Black residents have overwhelmingly favored Democratic candidates. "The General Assembly targeted predominantly Black voting precincts with surgical precision throughout the state in drawing and enacting the 2023 Plans, at the expense of traditional redistricting criteria, to achieve preferred district lines that diminish Black voters' ability to elect candidates of their choice at all levels of government," the lawsuit's authors wrote. Tuesday's lawsuit marks at least the third and most comprehensive litigation filed by voters since the Republican-dominated General Assembly enacted new maps in October for its own districts and for North Carolina's congressional delegation that are designed to boost GOP clout for years to come.

Aunna Dennis, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said even if marginalized groups of people don’t exactly know what the Public Service Commission is or does, they do see the impact on their bills and on their health. “They may not directly know the jargon, but they do know what’s impacting them,” she said.

The nonprofit Common Cause helped to create the National Voting in Prison Coalition. Keshia Morris Desir, justice and mass incarceration project manager for the group, explained the bill, known as the Inclusive Democracy Act, would restore the right to vote in federal elections for individuals who are incarcerated or on probation and parole. "What that does is help to disenfranchise the 4.6 million individuals that currently do not have access to the ballot box in federal elections," Morris Desir explained. "More than 50% of people across the United States support voting for currently incarcerated folks," Morris Desir pointed out. "People across the country know that, you know, just because you made a mistake in your past and you have a criminal conviction does not exclude you from citizenship and your right to vote."

Common Cause Florida is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that has been working for nearly 50 years to uphold the core values of American democracy, including an open, accountable government that is of, by, and for the people. They focus on issues around voting, and ensuring that every vote counts, that every eligible voter gets their chance to have a say, and that our elections represent the will of the people. Our guest today, Amy Keith, started working for Common Cause Florida about a year and a half ago as Florida Program Director, leading the organization’s voting rights, redistricting, and accountability work, including its federal congressional redistricting case that’s still working its way through the system. As of December 1st she now serves as the organization’s Executive Director.

Emma Steiner, Information Accountability Project manager at the watchdog group Common Cause, said the Albert plays a role in a broader far-right conspiracy theory about “the role of connection to the internet at polling places.” “It’s all part of this broader narrative that election workers are conspiring against voters, and that voting machines cannot be trusted,” Steiner noted. In actuality, the sensors are passive devices that listen for known intrusions on a county’s internet network, said Susannah Goodman, director of election security at Common Cause. “Elections weren’t declared critical infrastructure until 2017. To us, Albert sensors were a step in the right direction. They won’t stop an attack from happening, but they’ll tell you that bad actors are circling,” Goodman said, likening the sensor to an alarm system. “I thought it was too passive when I first heard about it.” While watchdogs like Goodman describe the Albert as a useful tool for monitoring and sharing threats, conspiracy theories caught the ear of Republicans in Ferry County, where the GOP chair authored a memo casting suspicion on the devices, the CIS, and a CIS co-founder’s work for Democratic presidential administrations.

Dede Feldman, former Democratic state Senator and advocate with Common Cause New Mexico, said on New Mexico in Focus that the current process is inherently partisan. “The Legislature is always going to fall into the trap of having the majority party draw the map that they like to maximize their influence,” she said.