(RALEIGH) -- UNC-Charlotte professor Ted Arrington has filed an affidavit in Wake County Superior Court that challenges the Republican-drawn maps for legislative and congressional districts in North Carolina. Like Arrington, State Sen. Dan Blue says Republicans used race as the predominant factor in creating the new maps.

"We've contended all along that they weren't fair and they weren't legal," said Sen. Blue. "Professor Arrington even used the word apartheid, political apartheid, well, it's not just political apartheid, it truly is racial apartheid."

As it stands now, these racially divided maps will dictate voting districts in the congressional and General Assembly elections this fall. A three-judge panel will decide on the matter later this week.