Cite as: 512 U. S. 997 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
obscure the very object of the statute and to run counter to its textually stated purpose. One may suspect vote dilution from political famine, but one is not entitled to suspect (much less infer) dilution from mere failure to guarantee a political feast. However prejudiced a society might be, it would be absurd to suggest that the failure of a districting scheme to provide a minority group with effective political power 75 percent above its numerical strength 13 indicates a denial of equal participation in the political process. Failure to maximize cannot be the measure of § 2.
4
While, for obvious reasons, the State agrees that a failure to leverage minority political strength to the maximum possible point of power is not definitive of dilution in bloc-voting societies, it seeks to impart a measure of determinacy by applying a definitive rule of its own: that as a matter of law no dilution occurs whenever the percentage of single-member districts in which minority voters form an effective majority mirrors the minority voters' percentage of the relevant population.14 Proportionality so defined, see n. 11,
13 When 40 percent of the population determines electoral outcomes in 7 out of 10 districts, the minority group can be said to enjoy effective political power 75 percent above its numerical strength.
14 See Brief for Appellees in Nos. 92-593, 92-767, p. 20 ("If the statutory prohibition against providing minorities 'less opportunity than other members of the electorate . . . to elect representatives of their choice' is given its natural meaning, it cannot be violated by a single-member district plan that assures minority groups voting control over numbers of districts that are numerically proportional to their population in the area where presence of the three Gingles preconditions has been established").
The parties dispute whether the relevant figure is the minority group's share of the population, or of some subset of the population, such as those who are eligible to vote, in that they are United States citizens, over 18 years of age, and not registered at another address (as students and members of the military often are). Because we do not elevate this proportion to the status of a magic parameter, and because it is not dispositive here, we do not resolve that dispute. See supra, at 1008-1009.
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