Washington D.C. (June 5) The Supreme Court faulted North Carolina in a racially tinged voting rights case, upholding a lower court’s ruling that the districts were racial gerrymanders with boundaries drawn to diminish the voting power of minorities, violating the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.
The lower court found that the Republican-led state legislature had crammed black voters into a limited number of districts in order to lessen their statewide electoral power. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower court to determine whether special elections were necessary.
