Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 98

2 

ALLEN v. MILLIGAN 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

I 
A 
  Gingles  marked  the  Court’s  first  encounter  with  the 
amended version of §2 that Congress enacted in 1982, and 
the Court’s opinion set out an elaborate framework that has 
since  been  used  to  analyze  a  variety  of  §2  claims.    Under 
that  framework,  a  plaintiff  must  satisfy  three  “precondi-
tions.”  Id., at 50.  As summarized in more recent opinions, 
they are as follows: 

“First, [the] ‘minority group’ [whose interest the plain-
tiff  represents]  must  be  ‘sufficiently  large  and  geo-
graphically  compact  to  constitute  a  majority’  in  some 
reasonably configured legislative district.  Second, the 
minority  group  must  be  ‘politically  cohesive.’    And 
third,  a  district’s  white  majority  must  ‘vote[ ]  suffi-
ciently as a bloc’ to usually ‘defeat the minority’s pre-
ferred  candidate.’ ”    Cooper  v.  Harris,  581  U. S.  285, 
301–302 (2017) (citations omitted). 

See  also  Wisconsin  Legislature  v.  Wisconsin  Elections 
Comm’n, 595 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (per curiam) (slip op., at 
3); Merrill v. Milligan, 595 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (KAGAN, J., 
dissenting from grant of applications for stays) (slip op., at 
3–4). 
  If  a  §2  plaintiff  can  satisfy  all  these  preconditions,  the 
court must then decide whether, based on the totality of the 
circumstances, the plaintiff ’s right to vote was diluted.  See 
Gingles, 478 U. S., at 46–48, 79.  And to aid in that inquiry, 
Gingles approved consideration of a long list of factors set 
out in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Majority Report on 
the  1982  VRA  amendments.    Id.,  at  44–45  (citing  S.  Rep. 
No. 97–417, pp. 28–30 (1982)). 

B 
  My  fundamental  disagreement with  the  Court concerns 
the  first  Gingles  precondition.    In  cases  like  these,  where