U.S. District Court Middle District of North Carolina, Case No.4:86CV00291.
The NAACP Legal Department along with Anita Earls of the UNC Center for Civil and attorney Romallus Murphy of Greensboro represented the Thomasville NAACP Branch in this voting rights case that sought to keep in place a 1987 consent judgment requiring the use of some single-member districts. The City elections continue to be characterized by racially polarized voting and no black candidate has been elected recently except from a majority-black district. The City of Thomasville voters passed a referendum in 2003 changing the method of election for the seven-member City Council, eliminating single-member districts and setting two year terms. The NAACP opposed the implementation of the referendum, but last November Judge Bullock ruled that the at-large, seven seat election method would not violate the Voting Rights Act and our clients decided not to appeal that ruling. However, in February, the City filed a motion asking the Court to allow some council members to serve out their original four year terms, which would have meant that only thee seats would be open in 2007, including the one currently held by the only African-American member of the City Council. This would have severely limited the opportunity for minority voters in the City and we opposed that motion. In this Order the court specifies that all seven seats must be up for election in 2007.The Plaintiff's expert was deposed on April 20, 2005 by the City's attorney. On May 16, 2005, the parties filed Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law.
On June 2, 2006, Judge Bullock issued an order in the NAACP v. City of Thomasville case. The NAACP successfully persuaded the Court that the 2007 election for City Council members in Thomasville should be for all seven seats so that minority voters will have some opportunity to use single-shot voting to elect a candidate of their choice
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