NC Supreme Court halts March primary due to remapping lawsuits

RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina Supreme Court announced all state primary elections will be moved to May 17, 2022 so the courts can review lawsuits claiming illegal gerrymandering.

The announcement came after the start of candidate filing for U.S. House and legislative seats in NC was blocked by an appeals court panel — only to be restored hours later when most Court of Appeals judges agreed they wanted to decide whether a longer filing delay was warranted.

The election was to be held on March 8, 2022. Anyone who filed for the March election is considered already filed for the May election, the court said.

The order by the justices means candidate filing is now suspended until the litigation is resolved. The primary is now pushed back to May 17 for all offices, including legislative seats and seats in the U.S. House and Senate.

A three-judge panel of the intermediate level appeals court had previously issued a temporary stay and told state and local officials not to begin accepting candidates for U.S. House and legislative seats in NC. Their districts are the subject of litigation that argue the lines approved by the Republican-controlled General Assembly last month are illegal partisan gerrymanders.

The panel — the judges’ names were not released — had given Republican legislative leaders and the state until Thursday to respond to the arguments of the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters, which leads a lawsuit. The league’s attorney said the candidate filing period should be suspended for a while so appeals courts can scrutinize the actual maps.

But lawyers for the GOP legislators not only opposed the temporary stay, they filed a motion Monday afternoon asking that the entire 15-judge Court of Appeals decide on both the temporary delay and the league’s request for a longer filing postponement.

An order signed by the court’s clerk late in the day declared a majority of the judges agreed to rehear the matter, and that the temporary delay of the filing period had been vacated. Ten of the 15 Court of Appeals judges are registered Republicans.

Filing began Tuesday for the U.S. House and legislative races in NC instead.

Wednesday’s order means a panel of three trial judges hearing a pair of lawsuits must rule by Jan. 11, followed by likely appeals.

The delay is being granted “in light of the great public interest in the subject matter of these cases, the importance of the issues to the constitutional jurisprudence of this state” and “the need for urgency in reaching a final resolution on the merits at the earliest possible opportunity,” the order reads.

Primary elections for a U.S. Senate seat, all 14 U.S. House and 170 General Assembly seats, along with judicial and other positions, are now delayed until May 17, according to the order.

Dozens of legislative and congressional candidates have already filed. Candidate filing for all state and local races was slated to continue through midday Dec. 17.

The full court order can be read here.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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Reporter Joe Bruno goes behind the scenes at the Board of Elections

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