The plaintiffs, in a statement Monday night, said they won’t appeal the decision, citing the timeline for candidate filing and “the nature of today’s ruling.”
“After nearly a decade of voting in some of the most gerrymandered districts in the country, courts have put new maps in place that are an improvement over the status quo, but the people still deserve better,” said former attorney general Eric Holder in a statement. He is chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which is backing the lawsuit in North Carolina and similar ones in other states.
Within just two weeks, if there weren’t maps in place, the state would have had to move the primary elections for Congress. Lawyers for the Republican defendants said that would have led to lower voter turnout and extra costs for local governments, and the judges later said avoiding such a delay was their primary concern.
See my earlier coverage, North Carolina State Court Will Not Redraw Congressional Districts for 2020: Did the Judges Bluff Their Way into Getting a Lessened Partisan Gerrymander?