Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 108.0

12 

ALLEN v. MILLIGAN 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

  The Court maintains that Alabama’s benchmark scheme 
would be unworkable because of the huge number of differ-
ent race-neutral maps that could be drawn.  As the Court 
notes,  there are  apparently  numerous  “competing  metrics 
on the issue of compactness” alone, and each race-neutral 
computer program may assign different values to each tra-
ditional districting criterion.  Ante, at 27 (internal quotation 
marks omitted). 
  My analysis does not create such problems.  If a §2 plain-
tiff chooses to use a computer program to create an illustra-
tive district, the court need ask only whether that program 
assigned race a predominant role. 
  The  Court  argues  that  Alabama’s  focus  on  race-neutral 
maps 
totality-of-the- 
circumstances test because “Alabama suggests there is only 
one  ‘circumstance[ ]’  that  matters—how  the  State’s  map 
stacks up relative to the benchmark” maps.  Ante, at 18.  My 
analysis,  however,  simply  follows  the  Gingles  framework, 
under  which  a  court  must  first  determine  whether  a  §2 
plaintiff  has satisfied  three  “preconditions”  before  moving 
on to consider the remainder of relevant circumstances.  See 
Growe v. Emison, 507 U. S. 25, 40–41 (1993) (unless plain-
tiffs  establish  all  three  preconditions,  there  “neither  has 
been a wrong nor can be a remedy”). 

squared  with  a 

cannot  be 

IV 
  As  noted,  I  would  vacate  and  remand  for  the  District 
Court to apply the correct understanding of Gingles in the 
first  instance.    Such  a  remand  would  require  the  District 
Court to determine whether the plaintiffs have shown that 
their illustrative maps did not give race a predominant role, 
and I will therefore comment briefly on my understanding 
of the relevant evidence in the record as it now stands. 

—————— 
266 (1977); Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 241–248 (1976).