Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 39

32 

ALLEN v. MILLIGAN 

Opinion of the Court 

of proceeding in a process or course of action.”  Brief for Al-
abama  51  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted).    But  the 
manner of proceeding in the act of voting entails determin-
ing  in  which  districts  voters  will  vote.    The  fact  that  the 
term “procedure” is preceded by the phrase “qualification or 
prerequisite  to  voting,”  52  U. S. C.  §10301(a),  does  not 
change its meaning.  It is hard to imagine many more fun-
damental “prerequisites” to voting than determining where 
to cast your ballot or who you are eligible to vote for.  Per-
haps for that reason, even Alabama does not bear the cour-
age of its conviction on this point.  It refuses to argue that 
§2  is  inapplicable  to  multimember  districting,  though  its 
textual arguments apply with equal force in that context. 
  The dissent, by contrast, goes where even Alabama does 
not dare, arguing that §2 is wholly inapplicable to district-
ing because it “focuses on ballot access and counting” only.  
Post, at  2 (opinion of THOMAS, J.).  But the statutory text 
upon  which  the  dissent  relies  supports  the  exact  opposite 
conclusion.  The relevant section provides that “[t]he terms 
‘vote’ or ‘voting’ shall include all action necessary to make a 
vote effective.”  Ibid. (quoting 52 U. S. C. §10310(c)(1); em-
phasis added).  Those actions “includ[e], but [are] not lim-
ited to, . . . action[s] required by law prerequisite to voting, 
casting  a  ballot,  and  having  such  ballot  counted  properly 
and  included  in  the  appropriate  totals  of  votes  cast.”  
§10310(c)(1).  It would be anomalous to read the broad lan-
guage of the statute—“all action necessary,” “including but 
not  limited  to”—to  have  the  crabbed  reach  that  JUSTICE 
THOMAS posits.  And we have already discussed why deter-
mining where to cast a ballot constitutes a “prerequisite” to 
voting, as the statute requires. 
  The dissent also contends that “applying §2 to districting 
rests on systematic neglect of . . . the ballot-access focus of 
the  1960s’  voting-rights  struggles.”    Post,  at  3  (opinion  of 
THOMAS, J.).  But history did not stop in 1960.  As we have 
explained, Congress adopted the amended §2 in response to