Redistricting proposals floated last week in the N.C. General Assembly could change who represents many Beaufort County residents in the state House.

As reported in Sunday’s edition, the House plan released Friday creates a newly aligned District 9 with a slender finger stretching into west Beaufort County.

If we read the numbers correctly, this reconfigured district would affect roughly a third of Beaufort County’s voting population, including most of the City of Washington, likely ensuring these voters would be represented by a lawmaker residing on the opposite end of Pitt County.

The bulk of the proposed House and Senate districts reportedly were drawn to protect minority voting rights, but we fail to see how the east-reaching tentacle of this new District 9 would meet the litmus tests established by the federal Voting Rights Act.

Though on the surface District 9’s numbers seem to favor minority candidates, we have serious questions about whether a black office-seeker could realistically expect to carry the day in a convoluted, mostly rural district that divides communities of interest on such a localized scale. And District 6, now represented by Rep. Bill Cook, R-Beaufort, would be out of reach for minority candidates for the next 10 years.

By the way, Beaufort County is one of the 40 North Carolina counties covered under the Voting Rights Act.

We read these plans as being defiant of the Voting Rights Act’s obligation to guarantee minority voting rights and the Stephenson v. Bartlett court precedent, which instructed lawmakers to avoid dividing counties among legislative districts when possible.

The true test of these principles may come after the lawsuits are filed.