Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1086_1co6.pdf
Page Number: 3.0

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

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Syllabus 

voters  consistently  prefer  different  candidates”  and  where  minority 
voters are submerged in a majority voting population that “regularly 
defeat[s]” their choices.  Ibid.   
  To prove a §2 violation under Gingles, plaintiffs must satisfy three 
“preconditions.”  Id., at 50.  First, the “minority group must be suffi-
ciently large and [geographically] compact to constitute a majority in 
a reasonably configured district.”  Wisconsin Legislature v. Wisconsin 
Elections Comm’n, 595 U. S. ___, ___ (per curiam).  “Second, the mi-
nority group must be able to show that it is politically cohesive.”  Gin-
gles, 478 U. S., at 51.  And third, “the minority must be able to demon-
strate that the white majority votes sufficiently as a bloc to enable it 
. . . to defeat the minority’s preferred candidate.”  Ibid.  A plaintiff who 
demonstrates the three preconditions must then show, under the “to-
tality  of  circumstances,”  that  the  challenged  political  process  is  not 
“equally open” to minority voters.  Id., at 45–46.  The totality of cir-
cumstances inquiry recognizes that application of the Gingles factors 
is  fact  dependent  and  requires  courts  to  conduct  “an  intensely  local 
appraisal” of the electoral mechanism at issue, as well as a “searching 
practical evaluation of the past and present reality.”  Id., at 79.  Con-
gress has not disturbed the Court’s understanding of §2 as Gingles con-
strued it nearly 40 years ago.  Pp. 9–11. 

(2) The  extensive  record  in  these  cases  supports  the  District 
Court’s conclusion that plaintiffs’ §2 claim was likely to succeed under 
Gingles.  As to the first Gingles precondition, the District Court cor-
rectly found that black voters could constitute a majority in a second 
district  that  was  “reasonably  configured.”    The  plaintiffs  adduced 
eleven illustrative districting maps that Alabama could enact, at least 
one  of  which  contained  two  majority-black  districts  that  comported 
with traditional districting criteria.  With respect to the compactness 
criteria, for example, the District Court explained that the maps sub-
mitted by one expert “perform[ed] generally better on average than” 
did HB1, and contained no “bizarre shapes, or any other obvious irreg-
ularities.”  Plaintiffs’ maps contained equal populations, were contig-
uous,  and  respected  existing  political  subdivisions.    Indeed,  some  of 
plaintiffs’ proposed maps split the same (or even fewer) county lines 
than the State’s. 
  The Court finds unpersuasive the State’s argument that plaintiffs’ 
maps were not reasonably configured because they failed to keep to-
gether the Gulf Coast region.  Even if that region is a traditional com-
munity of interest, the District Court found the evidence insufficient 
to sustain Alabama’s argument that no legitimate reason could exist 
to  split  it.    Moreover,  the  District  Court  found  that  plaintiffs’  maps 
were  reasonably  configured  because  they  joined  together  a  different 
community of interest called the Black Belt—a community with a high