Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1257_g204.pdf
Page Number: 29

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

23 

Opinion of the Court 

it does its best to push aside all but one of the circumstances 
we discuss.  It entirely rejects three of them: the size of the 
burden imposed by a challenged rule, see post, at 22–23, the 
landscape of voting rules both in 1982 and in the present, 
post, at 24–25,15 and the availability of other ways to vote, 
post, at 23–24.  Unable to bring itself to completely reject 
consideration  of the  state interests  that  a  challenged  rule 
serves, the dissent tries to diminish the significance of this 
circumstance as much as possible.  See post, at 26–29.  Ac-
cording to the dissent, an interest served by a voting rule, 
no matter how compelling, cannot support the rule unless a 
State  can  prove  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  courts  that  this 
interest could not be served by any other means.  Post, at 
17–18, 26–29.  Such a requirement has no footing in the text 
of §2 or our precedent construing it.16 

—————— 

15 The dissent objects to consideration of the 1982 landscape because 
even rules that were prevalent at that time are invalid under §2 if they, 
well, violate §2.  Post, at 24.  We of course agree with that tautology.  But 
the  question  is  what  it  means to  provide  equal opportunity,  and  given 
that every voting rule imposes some amount of burden, rules that were 
and are commonplace are useful comparators when considering the to-
tality  of  circumstances.    Unlike  the  dissent,  Congress  did  not  set  its 
sights on every facially neutral time, place, or manner voting rule in ex-
istence.  See, e.g., S. Rep. No. 97–417, at 10, n. 22 (describing what the 
Senate  Judiciary  Committee  viewed  as  “blatant  direct  impediments  to 
voting”). 

16 For support, the dissent offers a baseless reading of one of our vote-
dilution decisions.  In Houston Lawyers’ Assn., 501 U. S. 419, we consid-
ered a §2 challenge to an electoral scheme wherein all trial judges in a 
judicial district were elected on a district-wide basis.  Id., at 422.  The 
State asserted that it had a strong interest in district-wide judicial elec-
tions on the theory that they make every individual judge at least partly 
accountable to minority voters in the jurisdiction.  Id., at 424, 426.  That 
unique  interest,  the  State  contended,  should  have  “automatically”  ex-
empted the electoral scheme from §2 scrutiny altogether.  Id., at 426.  We 
disagreed, holding that the State’s interest was instead “a legitimate fac-
tor  to  be  considered  by  courts  among  the  ‘totality  of  circumstances’  in 
determining  whether  a §2  violation has occurred.”    Ibid.   To illustrate 
why an “automati[c]” exemption from §2’s coverage was inappropriate,