Editorial: Maps leave voters behind

The Republicans in control of the N.C. General Assembly won a victory of sorts last week when judges refused to delay the state’s spring primaries.

Board of Elections officials are probably celebrating, too. Now they can proceed with primary preparations.

But Rowan County and the rest of the state will lose in the long run if the redistricting maps at the center of the court ruling hold up in court. In redrawing lines to increase GOP power, Republicans carved Rowan into so many pieces that whatever clout the county had is marginalized. Statewide, the maps will create confusion as 563 precincts will be split into different legislative districts. This slice-and-dice approach to redistricting is bound to confound and discourage voters, whose ability to identify their elected representatives is already weak.

First, last week’s ruling: Three Superior Court judges rejected a request by Democrats, civil rights advocates and election watchdog groups to move the spring primaries from May 8 to July 10. The groups wanted the delay so judges could rule on lawsuits challenging the new maps first.

How bad is Rowan’s fate in these maps? After the confusion of being divided into two congressional districts for several years — the Republican-engineered map carves the county into three districts — the 12th (Mel Watt), the 5th (Virginia Foxx) and 8th (Larry Kissell). Say goodbye to Howard Coble and the 6th district.

There’s more. Instead of Rowan being completely in the 34th state Senate district with Davie (Andrew Brock), we’ll be in two, with the southeastern corner of the county falling into the 25th district (William Purcell), now comprised of Anson, Richmond, Scotland and Stanly counties. By keeping all of Davie and gaining part of Iredell, Brock has reinforced his position and made it harder for a strong Rowan candidate to unseat him.

You could argue that Rowan County will benefit from having more state senators and members of Congress, but this looks more like a division of our power than multiplication. Rowan will have less influence on its elected representatives.

The objection to this carving-up is not partisan; Democrats would have used the same tactics to build their strength if they controlled the redistricting knife. But just as North Carolina has strayed from the constitutional mandate to keep university tuition free as much as possible, so have we deviated from the constitutional requirement to keep counties whole as much as possible when redrawing district lines.

The redistricting process is leaving voters behind. Politicians get so absorbed in dicing districts to their party’s advantage that they forget the people — and make it even harder for us to do anything about it.