北卡罗来纳州最重要的选举并不是罗伊·库珀与迈克尔·沃特利之间那场备受关注的参议院竞选。
The most important election in North Carolina isn’t the highly publicized Senate race between Roy Cooper and Michael Whatley.
事实上，风险最高的是州最高法院的选举，而这场选举所获得的关注只是前者的一小部分。对阵双方是现任法官安妮塔·厄尔斯——一位长期从事民权事务的律师——以及莎拉·史蒂文斯，后者直到不久前还是州议会中一位有影响力的共和党议员。
In truth, the stakes are highest in the state Supreme Court race, which has gotten a fraction of the attention. It pits incumbent Anita Earls, a longtime civil rights attorney, against Sarah Stevens, who until recently was an influential Republican lawmaker in the state legislature.
共和党人希望将厄尔斯赶下台，并加强对该州最高法院的控制。而民主党人如果厄尔斯获胜，则有机会在2028年翻转法院的立场，届时将有三个席位面临改选。
Republicans want to unseat Earls and tighten their hold on the state’s high court. Democrats, if Earls wins, have a chance to flip the court in 2028, when three more seats will be up for re-election.
北卡罗来纳州最高法院的司法审查权在该州比以往任何时候都更加重要。甚至在总统唐纳德·特朗普于2025年下令州议员将该州唯一一个以黑人为主的国会选区划分撤销之前，该州就可以说是美国选区划分最为不公的州。
The North Carolina Supreme Court’s power of judicial review matters more than ever in the state. It was arguably the most gerrymandered in America even before President Donald Trump ordered state lawmakers in 2025 to draw the state’s only predominantly Black congressional district out of existence.
杰利蝾螈式的选区划分已有两百多年历史，但现代计算机程序使这种做法变得极其高效。而北卡罗来纳州正是如何最有效地实施这种做法的典范。
Gerrymandering is more than two centuries old but modern computer programs have made the practice ruthlessly efficient. And North Carolina is model for how to do it most effectively.
十多年来，共和党人操纵划分的选区甚至能够抵挡住民主党在这个政治上的“紫色”州所取得的最强劲的选举表现。在全州范围的选举中，北卡罗来纳州选民曾选出前州长罗伊·库珀、现任州长乔什·斯坦、总检察长杰夫·杰克逊以及厄尔斯本人等民主党人。但在同样的这些选举中，由于被扭曲的选区地图，共和党人在州议会和北卡罗来纳州国会代表团中占据了强势多数。
For a decade or more, Republicans’ gerrymandered voting districts have been able to withstand even Democrats’ strongest elections in a politically “purple” state. In statewide races, North Carolinians have elected Democrats like former Gov. Roy Cooper, current Gov. Josh Stein, Attorney General Jeff Jackson and Earls herself. But in those same elections, because of the tilted maps, Republicans claimed powerful majorities in the state legislature and in North Carolina’s congressional delegation.
大多数北卡罗来纳州选民或许已经厌倦了拥有美国资金最匮乏的公立学校之一、厌倦了州议会对跨性别群体的狂热敌意以及其对特朗普卑躬屈膝的顺从。
The majority of North Carolina voters might be fed up with having some of the most poorly funded public schools in America, with the legislature’s anti-trans zealotry and its cringing obedience to Trump.
但共和党人的杰利蝾螈式选区划分一次又一次地有效地让这些选民噤声。
But Republican gerrymanders have effectively shushed those voters, time after time.
直到最近，北卡罗来纳州最高法院仍是一个罕见的能够制衡该州共和党杰利蝾螈（不公正划分选区）行为的机构。2022年2月，该法院推翻了一张本可为共和党阵营增加至少两个席位的选区地图，并维持了一张由法院绘制的替代地图。在这些选区边界下，两党平分了该州的14个国会选区。但在同一次选举中，共和党人赢得了该法院的多数席位。共和党多数派迅速推翻了此前法院的裁决，为立法机构重新绘制新的杰利蝾螈地图铺平了道路。2024年，共和党人赢得了14个选区中的10个。
Until recently, the North Carolina Supreme Court was a rare institution that could check the state GOP’s gerrymandering. In February 2022, the court struck down a map that would have added at least two seats to the Republican column, and in its place upheld a court-drawn map. Under those district boundaries, the two parties split the state’s 14 congressional districts. But in the same election, Republicans captured a majority of seats on the court. The GOP majority quickly overturned the previous court’s ruling, setting the stage for new gerrymandered maps redrawn by the legislature. In 2024, Republicans won 10 of the 14 districts.
史蒂文斯在未来涉及杰利蝾螈的案件中很可能会与她的共和党同僚保持一致。毕竟，2022年和2025年立法机构绘制最新杰利蝾螈地图时，史蒂文斯正是北卡罗来纳州众议院的高层副手。
Stevens likely will go along with her GOP colleagues in future gerrymandering cases. After all, Stevens was a top lieutenant in the North Carolina House when the legislature drew its latest gerrymanders in 2022 and 2025.
但厄尔斯则发出了截然不同的声音。她职业生涯的大部分时间都担任投票权和民权律师。厄尔斯在9月表示：“在这个州，实现公平民主的最大挑战之一一直是党派杰利蝾螈问题。”
But Earls, who has spent most of her career as a voting rights and civil rights attorney, strikes a very different tone. “One of the biggest challenges to having a fair democracy in this state has been the problem of partisan gerrymandering,” Earls said in September. “We have this battle between one party that thinks the districts should be fair,” she added, “and the other party that staunchly defends having districts that favor their party.”
“我们面临这样一场斗争：一个政党认为选区划分应当公平，”她补充道，“而另一个政党则坚决捍卫有利于本党的选区划分。”甚至在特朗普将政治腐败正常化之前，在总统于2025年敦促南方共和党人发动一场全面的杰利蝾螈战争之前，北卡罗来纳州的共和党人就已在吹嘘他们对投票地图的操纵。
Even before Trump normalized political corruption, before the president urged Southern Republicans to wage an all-out gerrymandering war in 2025, North Carolina’s Republicans were bragging about their manipulation of the voting maps. “We drew Congressional maps for partisan advantage,” two of the state’s most powerful GOP lawmakers wrote in The Atlantic in 2019.
“我们绘制国会选区地图是为了党派优势，”该州两位最有权势的共和党议员2019年在《大西洋月刊》上写道，“这就是目的所在。”他们说话的口吻，仿佛杰利蝾螈——美国最古老的党派恶习之一——就像重力一样不可避免。但共和党和民主党执政的州都有——比如弗吉尼亚、佛罗里达、科罗拉多和加利福尼亚——通过了宪法禁令禁止党派性杰利蝾螈，或采取措施以独立选区重划委员会加以限制。
“That was the point.”They spoke as if gerrymandering — one of America’s oldest partisan vices — is as inevitable as gravity. But there are Republican and Democratic states alike — such as Virginia, Florida, Colorado and California — that have passed constitutional bans on partisan gerrymandering or taken steps to limit it with independent redistricting commissions.
最高法院对《投票权法》的拆解，开启了一个以种族为导向的杰利蝾螈新时代。如果厄尔斯今年获胜，民主党人或许至少能在北卡罗来纳州对此有所作为——前提是他们在2028年重新夺回多数席位。共和党人也明白其中的利害关系。
The Supreme Court’s dismantling of the Voting Rights Act has inaugurated a new era of racially minded gerrymandering. If Earls wins this year, Democrats might be able to do something about it in North Carolina at least, provided they retake the majority in 2028. Republicans understand the stakes, too.
2024年民主党人艾莉森·里格斯赢得法院一个席位时，她的共和党对手花了六个月才承认败选，此前还史无前例地试图作废超过6.5万张选票。尽管引发全国哗然，州最高法院似乎准备让共和党人推翻里格斯的当选——用厄尔斯的话说，这是一场“不流血的政变”——直到一名联邦法官介入。
When Democrat Allison Riggs won a seat on the court in 2024, it took six months for her GOP opponent to concede, after an unprecedented attempt to throw out more than 65,000 ballots. Despite a national outcry, the state Supreme Court appeared poised to let Republicans overturn Riggs’ election — a “bloodless coup,” as Earls put it — before a federal judge intervened.
因此，厄尔斯的连任竞选关乎的是确保选举有意义、选民的意愿得到尊重。对于像北卡罗来纳州这样的政治多数派来说，感到被投票少数派束手束脚、感到选举毫无意义，是一种危险的绝望。厄尔斯的连任竞选让这些人感受到了一种久违的东西：希望。
Earls’ re-election race, then, is about making certain that elections matter, that the will of the voters is respected. It is a dangerous kind of despair for a political majority like the one that exists in North Carolina to feel handcuffed by a voting minority, to feel as if elections are meaningless. Earls’ re-election campaign has those folks feeling something they haven’t felt in a while: hope.