Federal suit challenges NC laws for local Watauga voting districts | Eastern NC Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the Carolina Journal. The author of this post is CJ Staff.

    A new federal lawsuit challenges state laws that created new voting districts for Watauga County's county commissioners and school board. The suit alleges that the Republican-led General Assembly's districts violate voters' constitutional rights.

    A group called the Watauga County Voting Rights Task Force joined with left-of-center activist group Common Cause and seven individual voters to file suit Wednesday against the Watauga County elections board.

    "In 2023, the North Carolina General Assembly enacted Senate Bill 759 on strict party lines," the plaintiffs' lawyers wrote. "That legislation replaced Watauga County's longstanding system for electing its County Commission from residency districts, and imposed unconstitutional, malapportioned electoral districts with large population deviations."

    The General Assembly approved SB 759 in October 2023 with votes of 28-18 in the Senate and 64-40 in the House. No Democratic legislators voted for the bill.

    "The new districts were drawn without meaningful local input," the complaint continued. "The legislation packed disfavored voters into two overpopulated districts while creating three underpopulated districts for favored voters. The maximum population deviation from largest to smallest district is just under 10%, the threshold at which population deviations become presumptively unconstitutional."


    "The County Commission recognized that the General Assembly's plan was unnecessary and unpopular, so in June 2024, the Commission used the statutory process available to all North Carolina counties in N.C. General Statutes §§ 153A-58 ... to propose a new plan for selecting the County Commission that voters could approve by referendum in the 2024 general election," the plaintiffs' lawyers added. "The referendum proposed that three Commission members be elected from electoral districts with much smaller population deviations than those drawn by the General Assembly, and that voters from across the county elect two members at-large."

    "In response to the planned referendum, the General Assembly enacted a second bill just days after the referendum was announced," the complaint continued. "That bill, Senate Bill 912, barred any referendum approved by Watauga County voters under N.C. General Statute § 153A-61 from taking effect until the 2034 elections, after the next decennial census. The voters of Watauga County would still vote on the referendum approved by the County Commission, but if a majority cast their votes in favor, the referendum would not take effect."

    The General Assembly approved SB 912 in June 2024 with votes of 30-19 in the Senate and 75-39 in the House. Seven House Democrats supported the measure.

    "Senate Bill 912 also imposed the General Assembly's unconstitutional local districts on the Watauga County Board of Education," the plaintiffs argued. "As it did with the County Commission, the General Assembly replaced the county's longstanding practice of electing Board of Education members from residency districts with the same malapportioned, unconstitutional electoral districts."

    Watauga voters approved the county commissioners' plan with 71% of the vote in the November 2024 referendum.

    "But the referendum results will have no effect, and the voters of Watauga County will be stuck with unconstitutional districts for their County Commission and Board of Education, unless this Court intervenes," according to the complaint.


    "The General Assembly's interference in Watauga County local elections violates Plaintiffs' constitutional rights in several ways," the plaintiffs argued. "The districts themselves violate the Equal Protection Clause's guarantee to all citizens of a vote on equal grounds. The prohibition on giving effect to resolutions and referenda regarding the manner of selecting the Watauga County Commission violates plaintiffs' right to equal protection, burdens their right to vote, discriminates against them based on their viewpoint, and amounts to unconstitutional retaliation."

    "Fundamentally, the people of Watauga County have no choice but to petition this Court for urgently needed relief from Defendants' ongoing violations of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights," the complaint added.