Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 76

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

31 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

cases.  Ante, at 28, n. 8.  That conclusion, however, is the 
obvious implication of the majority’s reasoning and rheto-
ric.   See ante,  at  27 (decrying  a “map-comparison  test”  as 
“flawed in its fundamentals” even if it involves concededly 
“adequate  comparators”);  see  also  ante,  at  17–18  (stating 
that the “focu[s]” of §2 analysis is “on the specific illustra-
tive  maps  that  a  plaintiff  adduces,”  leaving  unstated  the 
implication that other algorithmically generated maps are 
irrelevant).  The majority in effect, if not in word, thus fore-
closes any meaningful use of computer evidence to help lo-
cate the undiluted benchmark. 
  There are two critical problems with this fiat.  The first, 
which the majority seems to recognize yet fails to resolve, 
is that excluding such computer evidence from view cannot 
be reconciled with §2’s command to consider “the totality of 
circumstances.”15    Second—and  more  fundamentally—the 
reasons  that  the  majority  gives  for  downplaying  the  rele-
vance of computer evidence would more logically support a 
holding that there is no judicially manageable way of apply-
ing §2’s results test to single-member districts.  The major-
ity  waxes  about  the  “myriad  considerations”  that  go  into 
districting, the “difficult, contestable choices” those consid-
erations require, and how “[n]othing in §2 provides an an-

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15 The  majority  lodges  a  similar  accusation  against  the  State’s  argu-
ments  (or  what  it  takes  to  be  the  State’s  arguments).    See  ante,  at  18 
(“Alabama suggests there is only one ‘circumstance’ that matters—how 
the State’s map stacks up relative to the benchmark” (alteration omit-
ted)).  But its rebuke is misplaced.  The “totality of circumstances” means 
that  courts  must  consider  all  circumstances  relevant 
to  an 
issue.  It does not mean that they are forbidden to attempt to define the 
substantive  standard  that  governs  that issue.   In  arguing  that  a  vote-
dilution  claim  requires  judging  a  State’s  plan  relative  to  an  undiluted 
benchmark  to  be  drawn  from  the  totality  of  circumstances—including, 
where probative, the results of districting simulations—the State argues 
little more than what we have long acknowledged.  See Reno v. Bossier 
Parish School Bd., 520 U. S. 471, 480 (1997).