ON SPLIT COUNTIES: (Counties that have been split in the past and are still split in this map)

We have been divided into two (or three) Senate/House districts for the past __ decade(s) and have been unable to elect a candidate for our home county because of that. I would ask that the committee consider putting _______ County into one district in order to give us a fair shot as having representation from our home county in the legislature. In appears to me that you have split the county into multiple districts only because you packed African Americans into districts to help elect Republicans in the other districts. (Expand on your countys interest in the legislature and why it sho uld be in one district economic reasons, population reasons, etc.) ON SPLIT PRECINCTS: Precincts are the most basic level of voting geography in our state. These are neighborhoods with a common polling location and common community interests.

Yet the Republican redistricting plans needlessly split hundreds of precincts into pieces. o Rucho Senate 1 splits 261 precincts into separate districts. o Lewis Dollar Dockham 1 splits a whopping 422 precincts into separate districts.
Splitting precincts is unnecessary in these plans. Splitting precincts splits neighborhoods into pieces, diluting their representation among different legislators. Splitting precincts is bad for fair and well-run elections poll workers will have trouble keeping track of who lives in what district, and this will make errors at the ballot box much more likely. Raises the potential for voter fraud if people can take advantage of the confusion.

ON DOUBLE-BUNKING:
Option 1 : Looking at all the ridiculous elements in the Republican map, they want to make us believe that more of anything is better. They are kind of like a bad used car salesman. They say if two splits are good in a county, four is even better. They say if 45% of blacks in a district already elect a preferred candidate, guess what? 52% is better.

Now, apparently, we are told with these maps that if one incumbent in a district is good, then two to them in the same district is great. I don't think that's how we do math in North Carolina.

Option 2 : Putting incumbents into districts together seems unnecessary when drawing the legislative maps. In both the House and the Senate plans you chose to put several pairs of incumbents into one district. In many places this will have a dire effect on the countys effectiveness in the legislature and will dilute their representation. (Talk about your specific members/counties here.) Vindictively putting two incumbents into the same districts does not serve the voters in those districts, rather it seems to only serve the purpose of partisan gerrymandering and settling political scores.

ON RACIALLY POLARIZED VOTING I have been a North Carolina voter for years. I came here today to let you folks on the committee know that I am quite surprised and extremely disappointed about the tone that you all have struck in this district map proposal, since its clear to me that the folks who drew it really do not have a sense of how effective minorities have been in our existing districts. Since [FILL IN YEAR], we have elected a preferred candidate to the state legislature in Raleigh from our legislative district. We are particularly proud of that accomplishment because that victory involved the support from both the black and white communities. Folks have worked across racial lines to get people in office who can strengthen our neighborhoods and improve life for all of the people in our county and in the state as a whole. And the effective service of our legislator [SPECIFIC PERSON] has brought us even closer together. [FILL IN ANY EXAMPLES OF ISSUES/IDEAS THAT YOU ALL HAVE WORKED ON ACROSS RACIAL LINES AND BILLS THAT YOU ARE PROUD OF]. I think that the electoral history of this district tells a success story about how race relations have improved in politics. Its therefore a real shame that this new plan spends so much effort to concentrate African Americans when the current districts like ours have worked so well in this county. Our experience shows that voters in the black and white community have been effective in building bridges. Perhaps you all didnt ask anybody who lives here, but this is not 1964 Mississippi.

We regularly choose our elected representatives based on their ability to be a strong voice in the legislature, and those representatives serve us with tremendous skill. Please dont do us any favors; youre trying to fix a community thats not broken.

ON RACIAL PACKING Looking at this map and its accompanying statistics, your intent is crystal clear: pack African American and minority voters into as few districts as possible so as to reduce our political influence in North Carolina.

o 47 percent of all blacks in NC are confined to just 3 Congressional districts. o Nearly 50 percent of all blacks in NC are confined to just 11 of 50 Senate districts! o And 50 percent of all blacks in NC are confined to just 25 of 120 House districts!
Several weeks ago, the chairs of this committee released their so -called Voting Rights Act legislative districts.

o The Rucho Senate 1 map packs blacks even more aggressively 5 of the 11 so -called VRA Senate districts have a HIGHER black proportion of the population than the initial VRA map.
It is utterly un necessary and not required by any law or court decision to elevate the minority population of a district to the levels you have unless you are specifically trying to pack black / minority voters into a small number of districts.

o EXAMPLES: HD -24 has 60.01% black population; HD-99 has 56.29% black population; SD-28 has 58.99% black population. One look at the shape of the districts youve drawn shows that your primary consideration was packing black voters.
Just look at how you go from one town to the next with spindly spider legs of districts, grabbing one black neighborhood after another.

Your map just looks wrong.

ON THE CORE OF DISTRICTS My name is [FILL IN NAME] from [FILL IN COUNTY]. I am a resident and registered voter in North Carolina, and I want to register my strong disapproval of what you all have decided to do with these districts. Im not sure whether you all have a clear understanding of how the districts in my county actually look, but if this were a television show, Id call it Extreme District Makeover.

The district that Ive always voted in has at its core [FILL IN CITY OR NEIGHBORHOOD]. We have been quite satisfied and pleased with the level of constituent service from our representative, and we think that the look of the district over all makes a lot of sense. One of the reasons the district works well is that its borders follow the lines that define the way real people live in our area. The folks in this area know each other, we go to school together, we worship together, and we work together to get the job done in elections. We are a network of clubs and groups that commonly organize to address major issues that affect us. [FILL IN AN EXAMPLE OF A MAJOR ISSUE THAT YOUVE BEEN INVOLVED WITH.] The proposal released by the committee seriously alters the way that the core parts of this district sit. It separates the folks who have a long tradition of working together and who see eye to eye on what concerns us most in public life. This proposed district looks about as real as a bad plastic surgery job; the folks I know wouldnt mistake this district for anything like the kind of lines that would define the real communities in this county. While I understand that populations for districts have to be equal, I really dont understand why you thought these radical changes were a necessary part of your changes. From what I can tell, there must be some other goal you have in mind. Because if you were really out to assure that our community would be fairly represented in the legislature, then Ive got to tell you that this map falls way short of what youre after. We think the existing form of our district, with our core communities joined together is already great. So please listen to me carefully: we really dont need any kind of district makeovers, extreme or otherwise.

ON SHAPE

In examining the shapes of the proposed VRA districts, it is unclear to me how many of these configurations serve a compact area. It seems obvious that these lines have been drawn specifically to pick up pockets of black voters, wherever they might be, with little or no regard for anything else. That some of these proposed districts run through three or four counties in the shapes of various tentacled sea creatures makes no sense to most residents who have arbitrarily been drawn into these districts.
The most glaring example of this problem is the new 20th House district. For example, what do the small number of urban African -Americans in Wilmington have in common with rural African -Americans in Bladen County who will make up the majority of the voting strength in this proposed new 20th District? Furthermore, how will members of a community in New Hanover or Brunswick organize with people as far away as north Bladen County? Also, I can see trouble for Representatives and Senators who, in several instances in this proposal, will have to travel great distances to reach their constituents. This may, in fact, make residents of some of the more remote corners of these districts feel underserved. From what I recall, these districts U.S. Supreme Court case in the 90s Shaw v. Reno - that came out of North Carolina dealing with the issue of creating districts in this fashion. I believe the Court found that creating districts that look like those recently proposed by Rep. Lewis, Senator Rucho, and the Republicans would be wrong and, moreover, possibly illegal.

ON COMMITTEE NOT LISTENING TO THE PUBLIC I suppose that you all should get some credit for trying again, but your effort doesnt justify producing a bad map twice in a row. This map is not much more than a minor change on a bad map. You revised something that the people clearly told you to reject outright. In the last public hearing, Chairman Rucho and Chairman Lewis, you all were specifically asked by the voters to show how you would use input that we all submitted. This map looks like you heard the one or two comments in a flood of opposing statements about how ridiculous this plan is. Are you seriously asking the people of this state to accept that this is your best effort at being responsive to our criticism? Exactly how dumb do you think we are?

While you sit and smile at so many of us who tell you that these plans are wrong-headed, ill-considered, and horribly designed, I wonder if you are thinking about new ways to ignore all of the changes we have asked you to make. I have a question for you Chairmen. If this process is seriously meant for the public to understand what these maps will do, then why is it that you are the only one who gets to ask questions of us at your choosing? We have some questions for you and we ask that you explain yourself. That weak joint statement of yours is about as meaningless as the greeting cards you send out to your constituents. You keep asking people for a definition for packing. Are you telling us that you dont know what it is? Because I look at these maps and I hear African Americans say they are just fine in the districts that they have and I ask myself: Why is it that Republicans want to do black people a favor? Can you answer that?
You tried to nip and tuck a horribly flawed plan and then dress it up with a nice statement that you have all your people are out saying: Its fair and legal. This is barely credible, which is why even voters for your own party are admitting that this map is almost laughable. And almost, only because it would impose such dire consequences for this state if it passes. So another question: Youd have us believe that your maps do a better job of following federal law than Anita Earls, a former official in the Justice Department. She developed a plan that she has shown follows the law, yet you claim that she does not. I dont know, but if Im given the choice between a civil rights lawyer with experience in this area and a dentist about what the law requires, then Im going with the lawyer. You know, I think that Republicans must be engaged in the art of the imagination. They seem to imagine that there was a wave of comments that led them to this. They seem to imagine themselves to be the experts on federal law.

You say in this joke of a statement, you seem to have no idea why you shouldnt draw every district of the state with 50% African American majorities. How about the fact that African Americans dont want it? Can you point to the record showing the overwhelming support for changing all of these effective districts and packing them with new voters? Ive followed it all and I surely cannot.
Is there nothing that you all wont do in pursuit of power? With so much of the progress that this state has made to develop a politics of including people of different racial backgrounds, where African Americans run and win in places where most folks dont look like them, why would you possibly think that there is a need all over NC to pack African Americans in so few districts?

Whats so shameful about what you did is that youre honest enough to announce the real reason that you adopted these monstrosities you call districts. You are doing nothing more than attempting to wall of African Americans from giving you any serious competition in the rest of the state. What scares you so much about running in a district with African American voters?

So in order to believe that all of these changes were intended to help African American voters, you have to believe a few things: (1) Chairmen Rucho and Lewis know more about whats good for African American than all the African American voters in North Carolina who spoke out against this plan since June (2) that somehow, Republicans found religion since introducing all of the offensive changes they seek to prevent African Americans and (3) this state is too blind to see the difference between a genuine effort to support a community and a badly managed power grab for domination of the state legislature. You both should be ashamed.