The Supreme Court is set to review a ruling from a North Carolina appeals court case, McCrory v. Harris, in which the plaintiff claims lawmakers relied heavily on race while drawing the 1st and 12th North Carolina congressional districts. The ruling has no official date, but the court may hear the case as early as this fall. 

The U.S. Supreme Court will review the appeals court decision on whether the two North Carolina congressional district maps were drawn with racial motives. 

In February, a panel of three federal judges originally struck down these districts’ drawings, claiming they were drawn with racial bias. If true, this would be gerrymandering, the manipulation of congressional districts to favor a certain party, made illegal under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Gerrymandering has historically been used to restrict certain racial groups from voting, especially black voters.

The panel did not have sufficient evidence to determine that legislators who drew the district map were actually guilty of gerrymandering. The Supreme Court will review this case to decide whether the original district maps were in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

Because of the panel’s ruling, North Carolina was required to hold two separate primaries: one on June 7 for congressional elections, using the newly drawn districts, and one on March 15 for all other races, using the original districts. However, some voters still complained about poorly drawn districts that grouped minorities and black voters into certain areas, according to The Associated Press.

State Senate Redistricting Chairman Bob Rucho, a Republican, worked on both the old and new congressional maps, and he defends the way the original district lines were drawn.

“That’s just the way the maps come out if you follow the criteria that we use,” Rucho said, according to The News & Observer. “I assume there will be a lot of [candidate] announcements if the Supreme Court does not stay the action of the three-judge panel.” 

The Republican-controlled state legislature drew these districts hoping that it could maintain its district-representative lead of 10-3 over the Democrats, according to The Charlotte Observer. 

The 2nd district, located in central North Carolina, had to be redrawn to fix the 1st district, located slightly to the northeast. This caused incumbent Republican representative Renee Ellmers to run against another incumbent Republican representative George Holding who won the primary vote on June 7. 

Steven Greene, a political science professor, said it is unusual that two incumbents of the same party would run against each other when their own party controls the state legislature, according to The News & Observer.

“That’s absolutely the sort of thing you do to the other party,” Greene said to The News & Observer. “What did Renee Ellmers or George Holding do to [anger] the state legislature? Could they really not come up with a different map that didn’t pit two Republican incumbents against each other?”