(Reuters) -The North Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered primary elections in the state delayed from March until May of 2022, citing legal challenges to gerrymandered political maps.
The court said in its five-page written ruling that it was directing the state to hold primaries for all offices on May 17 and ordering a lower-court judge to hold further proceedings on the legal challenges.
The judges said the decision was made “in light of the great public interest in the subject matter of these cases, the importance of the issues to the constitutional jurisprudence of this state and the need for urgency in reaching a final resolution on the merits at the earliest possible opportunity.”
(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb and Radhika Anilkumar; Editing by Christopher Cushing)