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“I absolutely think that these ads are deceptive,” said Keshia Morris Desir, the census project manager for government watchdog organization Common Cause. Morris Desir acknowledged that the ads also clearly affiliate themselves with Trump’s campaign, but said they were still misleading. “Although they also say things like ‘Help Trump Win’ — I definitely think that the fact that you name this as a census at the same time that the 2020 census bureau will be sending similar communications for folks to fill out their census form is unfortunate.”

“The limited release of Dr. Hofeller’s files has already proven critical in exposing secret efforts to manipulate the census and redistricting,” said Kathay Feng, national redistricting director for Common Cause. “Now the truth can come out about all of Hofeller’s shocking efforts to rig elections in almost every state.”

“Litigation is a hard and painful road,” said Kathay Feng, national redistricting director for Common Cause. The group was a plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court case decided in June , which also focused on North Carolina’s congressional map. The goal, Feng said, is to “make changes where each 10 years we’re not facing that same uphill ... climb.”

“If the justices in Washington, D.C., won’t protect people’s constitutional rights — won’t ensure that all voters have a fair opportunity to participate in our democracy — then the courts of North Carolina will fix the problem themselves,” said Stanton Jones, a chief lawyer in the lawsuit filed by Common Cause, the state Democratic Party and Democratic voters.

“We’ve already seen that these files have been instrumental in exposing lies around the effort to add a citizenship question to the census and around subverting a court’s order to redraw gerrymandered lines,” Kathay Feng, the national redistricting director for the group, said in an interview. “The Hofeller files are important because they’re the only thing that will allow the American people to know the truth behind the efforts to rig redistricting and elections,” she added. “They have to be made public.”

Common Cause's lawyers told a three-judge panel they want to use only 35 of those documents in the trial, scheduled to begin July 15. They say the files will bolster their arguments that Republican legislators drew state legislative districts in August 2017 with excessive partisan intent, in violation of the state constitution.