Group Tries to Deprive College Students of the Vote

DURHAM, N.C. — Individual voters and two pro-democracy groups are challenging the North Carolina General Assembly’s latest congressional map — the fifth in six years — as an unconstitutional, retaliatory redraw designed to punish Black voters in the state’s historic Black Belt for how they voted in 2024. Lawmakers passed the map with breathtaking speed and total disregard for public input or precedent. In less than a week, legislative leaders used Senate Bill 249 (S.B. 249) to ram through a mid-decade redistricting plan that surgically dismantles NC Congressional District 1, a previously Black opportunity district, and shifts thousands of Black voters out of their communities of representation. “North Carolina map drawers drew this map for one reason: To punish Black voters who fought back in 2024 in court and at the ballot box by rigging the game against them,” said Ari Savitzky, Senior Staff Attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. “What North Carolina is doing here is immoral and unconstitutional.” The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina (ACLU-NC) joined as co-counsel representing plaintiffs alongside Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ) and Hogan Lovells in filing a first supplemental complaint over the new map in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. The original lawsuit was filed jointly in 2023 by individual Black voters, NAACP North Carolina State Conference, and Common Cause. Individual plaintiffs in this filing are Dawn Daly-Mack, Calvin Jones, Arthur Lee Johnson, Barbara Jean Sutton, and Courtney Patterson. The supplemental complaint states that S.B. 249 violates the First, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by retaliating against voters for their political choices and obliterating the only congressional district in Eastern North Carolina where Black voters could consistently elect their candidate of choice. “Absent relief from this Court, the General Assembly’s actions in unilaterally initiating the redistricting process solely to punish voters will set a dangerous precedent and incentivize regularized, retaliatory redistricting following every federal election,” the complaint states. “It foreshadows a relentless game of whack-a-mole against voters, in which even a hint of dissent will cause the hammer to come down through targeted line-drawing against communities whose voters dare differ from the views of those in power.” While this redraw comes after increased pressure from the White House on state lawmakers, this targeted attack is one of several in a larger coordinated assault on the Black Belt of North Carolina. Several of the voting districts from the 2023 redrawing were challenged in a federal trial this past summer. The maps drawn directly attack the rights of Black North Carolinians. “This wasn’t redistricting. It was payback,” said Deborah Dicks Maxwell, President of the NAACP North Carolina State Conference. “Lawmakers used their power to silence Black voters who dared to speak through the ballot box. That’s retaliation, plain and simple.” “Our communities showed up in 2024. We organized, we voted, and now the legislature is trying to undo our voices on purpose,” said Patterson, an individual plaintiff whose residence was located in Congressional District 1 under the 2023 Congressional Plan and is now in 2025 Congressional District 3. “We will not be silenced.” Lawmakers didn’t hide their intentions, according to the complaint. During committee hearings, Sen. Ralph Hise stated plainly that “the motivation behind this redraw is simple and singular: Draw a new map that will bring an additional Republican seat to the North Carolina congressional delegation.” He and other leaders repeatedly cited 2024 election results to justify the changes — data that revealed overwhelming Black voter support for Rep. Don Davis and Presidential candidate Kamala Harris. In other words, the legislature used the voters’ own ballots as a blueprint for retaliation. The result is a map that drops the Black voting-age population in Congressional District 1 by nearly eight percentage points and perfectly splits Black voters between Districts 1 and 3, neutralizing their collective political voice. “Politicians in the legislature specifically targeted Black voters in a shameful attempt to silence their voices. The legislature’s discriminatory gerrymandering is a shocking violation of hard-won constitutional freedoms,” said Bob Phillips, Executive Director of Common Cause North Carolina. “Our electoral districts don’t belong to politicians; our districts belong to the people. We’re proud to stand with these courageous voters in our fight against the legislature’s retaliatory gerrymandering.” “This is not redistricting as usual. It’s a mid-decade, no-pretext attempt to cancel Black voters’ voices because those in power didn’t like the results of the last election,” said Hilary Harris Klein, Senior Counsel for Voting Rights at SCSJ. “Our Constitution and the Voting Rights Act do not permit the government to redraw lines to punish people for their political speech.” “Let’s be clear: This new map is part of a years-long strategy to entrench partisan control at the expense of Black voters in historically influential communities, silencing them based on viewpoint,” said Jaclyn Maffetore, Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU-NC. “No one’s vote should count less because of who they are or what they believe.” A copy of the filing can be found here: https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2025/10/175-1_NAACP-Plaintiffs-Proposed-First-Supplemental-Complaint.pdf

Representing the League of Women Voters of California, the ACLU Voting Rights Project, ACLU of Northern California, and ACLU of Southern California have filed a motion to intervene in a federal lawsuit over the federal government’s demand that California turn over its entire voter registration rolls, including with voters’ sensitive personal data such as drivers’ license numbers and partial social security numbers.

The ACLU, along with several partner organizations, is opposing a request to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission from the America First Legal Foundation (AFL) for a new rulemaking to consider changing the federal voter registration form to add a requirement for documentary proof of citizenship.   The federal voter registration form was created by the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), and under federal law almost all states in the country have to accept it as a form of mail voter registration. As intended by the NVRA, the form is a one page, streamlined application that an individual can complete and mail-in without providing any additional documentation. If the rules about the federal form are changed so that additional documentation is required, it is likely that many states would also change their own state voter registration forms to require documentary proof of citizenship.   This change would potentially disenfranchise millions of eligible U.S. citizens.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) sued the State of Pennsylvania, seeking private, confidential voter data that is protected by state privacy laws. DOJ’s efforts appear to be part of an effort to build a national voter database without congressional authorization and to improperly question the validity of state voter rolls.