Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 24

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

17 

Opinion of the Court 

on account of race or color.”  52 U. S. C. §10301(a).  What 
that means, §2 goes on to explain, is that the political pro-
cesses in the State must be “equally open,” such that minor-
ity voters do not “have less opportunity than other members 
of the electorate to participate in the political process and 
to elect representatives of their choice.”  §10301(b). 
  We have understood the language of §2 against the back-
ground  of  the  hard-fought  compromise  that  Congress 
struck.  To that end, we have reiterated that §2 turns on the 
presence  of  discriminatory  effects,  not  discriminatory  in-
tent.  See, e.g., Chisom v. Roemer, 501 U. S. 380, 403–404 
(1991).  And we have explained that “[i]t is patently clear 
that  Congress  has  used  the  words  ‘on  account  of  race  or 
color’ in the Act to mean ‘with respect to’ race or color, and 
not  to  connote  any  required  purpose  of  racial  discrimina-
tion.”    Gingles,  478  U. S.,  at  71,  n.  34  (plurality  opinion) 
(some alterations omitted).  Individuals thus lack an equal 
opportunity  to  participate  in  the  political  process  when  a 
State’s electoral structure operates in a manner that “min-
imize[s] or cancel[s] out the[ir] voting strength.”  Id., at 47.  
That  occurs  where  an  individual  is  disabled  from  “en-
ter[ing] into the political process in a reliable and meaning-
ful manner” “in the light of past and present reality, politi-
cal and otherwise.”  White, 412 U. S., at 767, 770.  A district 
is  not  equally  open,  in other  words, when  minority  voters 
face—unlike their majority peers—bloc voting along racial 
lines, arising against the backdrop of substantial racial dis-
crimination within the State, that renders a minority vote 
unequal to a vote by a nonminority voter. 
  The State’s reading of §2, by contrast, runs headlong into 
our precedent.  Alabama asserts that a State’s map does not 
“abridge[ ]”  a  person’s  right  to  vote  “on  account  of  race”  if 
the map resembles a sufficient number of race-neutral al-
ternatives.    See  Brief  for  Alabama  54–56.    But  our  cases 
have consistently focused, for purposes of litigation, on the