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Page Number: 37.0

30 

ALLEN v. MILLIGAN 

Opinion of the Court 

even more demanding than the intent test Congress jetti-
soned.  Demonstrating discriminatory intent, we have long 
held,  “does  not  require  a  plaintiff  to  prove  that  the  chal-
lenged  action rested solely  on  racially  discriminatory  pur-
pose[ ].”  Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Devel-
opment Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 265 (1977) (emphasis added); 
see  also  Reno,  520  U. S.,  at  488.    Alabama’s  proposed  ap-
proach stands in sharp contrast to all this, injecting into the 
effects test of §2 an evidentiary standard that even our pur-
poseful discrimination cases eschew. 

C 
  Alabama  finally  asserts  that  the  Court  should  outright 
stop applying §2 in cases like these because the text of §2 
does not apply to single-member redistricting and because 
§2 is unconstitutional as the District Court applied it here.  
We disagree on both counts. 
  Alabama  first  argues  that  §2  does  not  apply  to  single-
member redistricting.  Echoing JUSTICE THOMAS’s concur-
rence  in  Holder  v.  Hall,  Alabama  reads  §2’s  reference  to 
“standard, practice, or procedure” to mean only the “meth-
ods for conducting a part of the voting process that might 
. . .  be  used  to  interfere  with  a  citizen’s  ability  to  cast  his 
vote.”    512  U. S.,  at  917–918  (opinion  concurring  in  judg-
ment).  Examples of covered activities would include “regis-
tration requirements, . . . the locations of polling places, the 
times polls are open, the use of paper ballots as opposed to 
voting  machines,  and  other  similar  aspects  of  the  voting 
process.”  Id., at 922.  But not “a single-member districting 
system  or  the  selection  of  one  set  of  districting  lines  over 
another.”  Id., at 923. 
  This  understanding  of §2  cannot  be  reconciled  with  our 
precedent.    As  recounted  above,  we  have  applied  §2  to 
States’  districting  maps  in  an  unbroken  line  of  decisions 
stretching four decades.  See supra, at 11; see also Brnovich, 
594 U. S., at ___, n. 5 (slip op., at 7, n. 5) (collecting cases).