Latest redistricting process led to much fairer maps, analysis shows

Yet Democrats still aren't completely happy with the latest round of mapmaking, which they say carried forward inherent bias from previous iterations and didn't go far enough to improve the redistricting process.

Common Cause, a left-leaning watchdog group, has filed objections to the House maps, asking the court to redraw several districts it says are still skewed by partisan intent.

To find out what's "typical," Mattingly's team analyzed thousands of computer-generated maps of North Carolina's possible district lines. Then, using election results dating back to 2008, researchers re-sorted the votes into each new district and counted the wins for each party.

The result shows which partisan breakdowns appear most often among the many thousands of maps. It also shows which outcomes are rare.

The simulated maps rarely produced as few Democratic wins as the legislature's previous districts did, a sign lawyers suing the state said was evidence of extreme partisan gerrymandering.

But the remedial maps drawn in September are different.

Based on votes for five 2016 statewide races, WRAL's analysis shows the new district lines routinely elect as many or more Democrats than most of Mattingly's simulated maps. That means the maps behave on the whole exactly like we'd expect – at least given the state's existing criteria for drawing district lines.

And that's a big caveat, says Catawba College professor of politics and history Michael Bitzer, who reviewed WRAL's findings.

"It would seem to me there are more competitive-oriented districts than previous maps," Bitzer said. "Could there be more? Probably yes."

When evaluating "fair" maps, he said it all comes down to how you define the term. That can get complicated in a winner-take-all electoral system, where an equally split electorate doesn't guarantee proportional representation.

"'Fair' is a four-letter word, and that's when you get into subjective valuation," Bitzer said. "Within the system, it's already designed – one could argue – not to be fair."

On average across the five statewide 2016 election results evaluated by WRAL, the remedial maps show a pickup of about 4 Democratic wins in the North Carolina House and about 3 Democratic wins in the Senate.

Under similar conditions to the 2016 elections at least, Bitzer said the new maps could still mean an uphill battle for Democrats looking to control one of the two General Assembly chambers.

Judges are expected to rule on the proposed maps from the legislature any day now. They could adopt them wholesale or turn them over to their court-appointed redistricting expert for another redraw.

In contrast to their more extreme iterations, Bitzer said the less gerrymandered maps present thornier legal issues for the court, which must establish how far the judicial branch can go to to curb power constitutionally granted to state legislatures.

"For the three judges, the question I would have is how far are they willing to push the envelope?" Bitzer said. "How far do they read into the constitution what is a fair or free election?"

For its part, Common Cause in late September filed a new brief objecting to 19 House districts redrawn by the legislature, saying they were still created with partisan intent in violation of the court's order.

Attorneys for the watchdog group declined to comment on WRAL's analysis.

But they've called the most recent map-drawing process "deeply flawed" and have accused legislators of going too far to protect incumbents.

Republican leaders who reviewed WRAL analysis, however, said the findings show the legislature followed the court's instructions "in both process and outcome."

"The results as presented to us for this analysis appear to show that the resulting map is exactly what experts would predict – the districts are squarely within the range of Republican and Democratic seats predicted, and may even produce slightly more Democratic seats than an average non-partisan map," Joseph Kyzer, spokesperson for Republican House Speaker Tim Moore, said in a statement.

Pat Ryan, a spokesperson for Republican Senate leader Phil Berger, also noted that the maps received votes from both parties.

"The legislature produced fair maps with bipartisan support in the most transparent redistricting process in history," Ryan said in a statement. "Hopefully, this effort – which has received praise from across the political spectrum – will finally put to rest a decade of relentless redistricting litigation."

Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, called both the resulting maps and the process itself a "dramatic improvement" over the legislature's past attempts.

"The maps represent fairer, more reasonable districts than you would see with extreme partisan gerrymandering," McKissick, a member of the Senate Committee on Redistricting and Elections who also reviewed WRAL's findings, said.

He specifically cited the level of transparency throughout the Senate process as a "giant step forward." But he said he still has concerns about the legislature's reliance on pre-existing map data – like the clusters of counties lawmakers sought to keep together during the redrawing process in September.

"I think that the fact there's an improvement is a good thing," McKissick said. "The question is, did the improvement go as far as it could?"

Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, said the predetermined county clusters, in particular, provide Republicans with an inherent advantage that bakes in bias at the start of the mapmaking process. Although she also noted that the process was much improved, Harrison said "the bar was set super low."

"I want the map-drawing out of the hands of the legislators, because there's always a strong self-preservation instinct," Harrison, who sits on the House Redistricting Committee, said.

"I don't think there's any secret where I'd like to get ideally," Reives said. "But at a minimum, I'd like to get something in place so that whoever's in the majority – whether it be Republicans, Democrats – can't manipulate this process and put us down this road again."

Bitzer's not so sure that will happen anytime soon, now that partisan battle lines have extended even further into the courtroom.

"Whether there is a true nonpartisan approach to redistricting, I'm doubtful," Bitzer said. "But can you make it less potentially egregious for one side or another? That may be the solution."