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2 

MERRILL v. MILLIGAN 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

progeny  have  engendered  considerable  disagreement  and 
uncertainty regarding the nature and contours of a vote di-
lution  claim.    See  Gingles,  478  U. S.,  at  97  (O’Connor,  J., 
concurring  in  judgment)  (characterizing  the  Court’s  ap-
proach  at  the  outset  as  “inconsistent  with  . . .  §2’s  dis-
claimer of a right to proportional representation”); Johnson 
v. De Grandy, 512 U. S. 997, 1028 (1994) (Kennedy, J., con-
curring in part and concurring in judgment) (warning that 
“placing undue emphasis upon proportionality risks defeat-
ing the goals underlying the Voting Rights Act”); Gonzalez 
v. Aurora, 535 F. 3d 594, 597 (CA7 2008) (Easterbrook, J.) 
(referring to section 2’s “famously elliptical” language).  See 
also J. Chen & N. Stephanopoulos, The Race-Blind Future 
of Voting Rights, 130 Yale L. J. 862, 871 (2021) (describing 
section 2 vote dilution doctrine as “an area of law notorious 
for  its  many  unsolved  puzzles”);  C.  Elmendorf,  Making 
Sense of Section 2: Of Biased Votes, Unconstitutional Elec-
tions, and Common Law Statutes, 160 U. Pa. L. Rev. 377, 
389 (2012) (noting the lack of any “authoritative resolution 
of  the  basic  questions  one  would  need  to  answer  to  make 
sense of the results test”). 
  In order to resolve the wide range of uncertainties arising 
under Gingles, I would note probable jurisdiction in Milli-
gan and grant certiorari before judgment in Caster, setting 
the cases for argument next Term.  But I would not grant a 
stay.  As noted, the analysis below seems correct as Gingles 
is  presently  applied,  and  in  my  view  the  District  Court’s 
analysis  should  therefore  control  the  upcoming  election.  
The practical effect of this approach would be that the 2022 
election would take place in accord with the judgment of the 
District Court, but subsequent elections would be governed 
by this Court’s decision on review.