Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1257_g204.pdf
Page Number: 77.0

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

33 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

See Democratic Nat. Committee v. Reagan, 329 F. Supp. 3d 
824, 871 (Ariz. 2018); supra, at 15, n. 4. 
  The majority is wrong to assert that those statistics are 
“highly  misleading.”    Ante,  at  28.    In  the  majority’s  view, 
they can be dismissed because the great mass of voters are 
unaffected by the out-of-precinct policy.  See ibid.  But Sec-
tion 2 is less interested in “absolute terms” (as the majority 
calls them) than in relative ones.  Ante, at 27; see supra, at 
14–15.    Arizona’s  policy  creates  a  statistically  significant 
disparity  between  minority  and  white  voters:  Because  of 
the policy, members of different racial groups do not in fact 
have  an  equal  likelihood  of  having  their  ballots  counted.  
Suppose  a  State  decided  to  throw  out  1%  of  the  Hispanic 
vote each election.  Presumably, the majority would not ap-
prove  the  action  just  because  99%  of  the  Hispanic  vote  is 
unaffected.  Nor would the majority say that Hispanics in 
that system have an equal shot of casting an effective bal-
lot.    Here,  the  policy  is  not  so  overt;  but  under  Section  2, 
that difference does not matter.  Because the policy “results 
in” statistically significant inequality, it implicates Section 
2.  And the kind of inequality that the policy produces is not 
the kind only a statistician could see.  A rule that throws 
out, each and every election, thousands of votes cast by mi-
nority citizens is a rule that can affect election outcomes.  If 
you  were  a  minority  vote  suppressor  in  Arizona  or  else-
where, you would want that rule in your bag of tricks.  You 
would not think it remotely irrelevant. 
  And the case against Arizona’s policy grows only stronger 
the  deeper  one  digs.    The  majority  fails  to  conduct  the 
“searching practical evaluation” of “past and present real-
ity” that Section 2’s “totality of circumstances” inquiry de-
mands.  De Grandy, 512 U. S., at 1018.  Had the majority 
done  so,  it  would  have  discovered  why  Arizona’s  out-of- 
precinct policy has such a racially disparate impact on vot-
ing opportunity.  Much of the story has to do with the siting 
and shifting of polling places.  Arizona moves polling places