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Page Number: 1

(Slip Opinion) 

OCTOBER  TERM,  2017 

1 

Syllabus 

NOTE:  Where  it  is  feasible,  a  syllabus  (headnote)  will  be  released,  as  is
being  done  in  connection  with  this  case,  at  the  time  the  opinion  is  issued.
The  syllabus  constitutes  no  part  of  the  opinion  of  the  Court  but  has  been
prepared  by  the  Reporter  of  Decisions  for  the  convenience  of  the  reader. 
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

GILL ET AL. v. WHITFORD ET AL. 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE 
WESTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN 

No. 16–1161.  Argued October 3, 2017—Decided June 18, 2018 

Members of the Wisconsin Legislature are elected from single-member 
legislative  districts.    Under  the  Wisconsin  Constitution,  the  legisla-
ture  must  redraw  the  boundaries  of  those  districts  following  each 
census.  After the 2010 census, the legislature passed a new district-
ing plan known as Act 43.  Twelve Democratic voters, the plaintiffs in
this case, alleged that Act 43 harms the Democratic Party’s ability to
convert  Democratic  votes  into  Democratic  seats  in  the  legislature. 
They asserted that Act 43 does this by “cracking” certain Democratic
voters among different districts in which those voters fail to achieve 
electoral  majorities  and  “packing”  other  Democratic  voters  in  a  few
districts in which Democratic candidates win by large margins.  The 
plaintiffs argued that the degree to which packing and cracking has
favored one political party over another can be measured by an “effi-
ciency  gap”  that  compares  each  party’s  respective  “wasted”  votes— 
i.e., votes cast for a losing candidate or for a winning candidate in ex-
cess  of  what  that  candidate  needs  to  win—across  all  legislative  dis-
tricts.    The  plaintiffs  claimed  that  the  statewide  enforcement  of  Act
43 generated an excess of wasted Democratic votes, thereby violating
the  plaintiffs’  First  Amendment  right  of  association  and  their  Four-
teenth Amendment right to equal protection.  The defendants, sever-
al  members  of  the  state  election  commission,  moved  to  dismiss  the 
plaintiffs’ claims.  They argued that the plaintiffs lacked standing to
challenge the constitutionality of Act 43 as a whole because, as indi-
vidual  voters,  their  legally  protected  interests  extend  only  to  the
makeup of the legislative district in which they vote.  The three-judge
District  Court  denied  the  defendants’  motion  and,  following  a  trial, 
concluded that Act 43 was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
Regarding standing, the court held that the plaintiffs had suffered a