Map muddle: It's hard to be a savvy voter when so much is still unsettled

The signs outside most voting precincts look very much the same.

Blue writing.

White background.

Some depiction or other of Old Glory.

They all say "vote here."

But with the filing date for the upcoming 2018 mid-term elections a month out from today, many North Carolina voters don't know whether the person representing their state House or Senate -- or now, congressional -- districts will be on their ballots come November.  

A special master has yet to complete the state-level district maps as ordered by a three-judge panel in 2017, after the 2011 House and Senate maps drawn by the GOP were tossed out because the courts found they were unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered, and the new maps that were drawn to replace them are again being contested. This time around the argument is that they are unconstitutionally partisan.

And lo and behold, the Congressional districts are out now, too -- tossed by another judicial panel because it said the lines were unconstitutionally discriminatory against voters who might not want to vote for Republican candidates.

Say you do want to vote Republican though, it is hard to be confident  heading into the mid-terms not knowing at this juncture if the guy representing them now is going to be the guy representing them come November.

Take the Congressional districts. Before, Wayne County had G.K. Butterfield. Then came a new round of redistricting, the lines changed and instead of Butterfield, and we got David Rouzer.

OK, he won re-election in this district and he's done a fine job, so far as we can tell. But if the decision to throw out the gerrymandered maps gets upheld by the courts, do we revert back to Butterfield? Or will new maps be drawn that don't look anything like the old ones or those recently tossed, and if so, who would it be then?

At the state level, here is what we do know -- it is unlikely that Rep. John Bell will be moved out of Wayne County's district, regardless of what the maps do.

Rep. Jimmy Dixon may or may not be moved out, depending on the maps. Even if he is though, he has said many times he isn't going to forget Wayne County. He fought hard for our hurricane recovery funding and really came through recently for the folks in Seven Springs.

Rep. Larry Bell is retiring, not running, hanging up his political spurs. Will the Democrats run another candidate in his district or can the GOP look to take control of that swath, too, wherever it might fall on the map? We'll have to wait and see.

Sen. Don Davis may also be moved out, and we aren't entirely sure what Sen. Louis Pate is considering doing. Tough losses, both, should they go.

There is a lot up in the air right now, but it is all contingent -- and so might be the majority -- on where the lines are drawn when the dust settles.

Published in Editorials on January 11, 2018 11:35 PM