In North Carolina, a new report finds the state’s democratic institutions are so flawed, the state should no longer be considered a functioning democracy. The report by the Electoral Integrity Project points to extreme gerrymandering, voter suppression of communities of color and the stripping of power of incoming Democratic Governor Roy Cooper’s power by Republicans. Writing in the Raleigh News & Observer, lead researcher Andrew Reynolds gives North Carolina an electoral integrity score of 58 out of 100 points—similar to the scores of Cuba, Sierra Leone and Indonesia. Speaking on Democracy Now!, the head of North Carolina’s chapter of the NAACP, Rev. William Barber, says Republicans are fighting to prevent black and brown voters from claiming power.

Rev. William Barber: “I believe all of the pushback we’re seeing—the voter suppression, the redistricting—is because the extremists see the possibility of a third Reconstruction. They know that if we register 30 percent of the African-American voter, unregistered voters, in the South, and if we add to that whites and progressive whites and Latinos, you will have changed the South.”