States Partially Covered by the Section 5 Voting Rights Act

Sizeable progress has been achieved in North Carolina voting rights. Although minority representation has not quite achieved full proportionality, it is very close. The 2004 Census Bureau estimates show African Americans comprising 20.5 percent of the state’s voting age population. Blacks currently hold 15.3 percent of the seats in the legislature.

Black voters are more likely to vote in North Carolina than in the non-southern states, but North Carolina black voters register and turnout at lower rates that North Carolina whites. The disparity between black and white voter participation has declined dramatically over the past two decades, as the two races are now less than 3 points apart on rates of participation.

Black voters have been able to elect candidates of choice to the legislature and the US House, and have continued to do so with the departure of incumbents from districts with lower black voter percentages than in the early 1990s. The success of Reps. Ballance and Butterfield in succeeding Rep. Clayton from the low country 1st congressional district is representative of this ability.

The old disparity in black and white registration rates in North Carolina has been substantially reduced and, in fact, was eliminated in the 2004 election with blacks reporting higher rates of registration than whites. Additionally, in 2004, the Census Bureau estimates that black voter participation at the polls was 63.1 percent while it was only 58.1 percent for whites. Black voter participation rates in North Carolina are sometimes exceeding black voter participation rates outside of the South.

By 2000, North Carolina had approximately 500 African America officeholders, up from only 40 in 1969. A high-profile African American, Harvey Gantt, has twice won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate, once beating Michael Easley (a white who later became the state’s governor) with 57 percent of the primary vote. Even though Gantt lost both bids for the Senate, his performance was on par with that of other white Democrats who had challenged the incumbent, Jesse Helms.

Between the two Gantt defeats was a statewide victory for an African American. In 1992, Ralph Campbell won the Democratic nomination for state auditor and then went on to win in the general election. Four years later, Campbell won a second term in this constitutional office. Campbell won reelection in 1996 when he competed on the same ballot with Harvey Gantt. Campbell ran four percentage points ahead of Gantt and won office, while Gantt lost once again. Campbell won a third term in 2000 but failed in his bid for a fourth term in 2004.

Edward Blum is a visiting fellow at AEI. He is the author of The Unintended Consequences of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (AEI Press, 2007).