1018
Opinion of the Court
supra, would thus be a safe harbor for any districting scheme.
The safety would be in derogation of the statutory text and its considered purpose, however, and of the ideal that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 attempts to foster. An inflexible rule would run counter to the textual command of § 2, that the presence or absence of a violation be assessed "based on the totality of circumstances. " 42 U. S. C. § 1973(b). The need for such "totality" review springs from the demonstrated ingenuity of state and local governments in hobbling minority voting power, McCain v. Lybrand, 465 U. S. 236, 243-246 (1984), a point recognized by Congress when it amended the statute in 1982: "[S]ince the adoption of the Voting Rights Act, [some] jurisdictions have substantially moved from direct, over[t] impediments to the right to vote to more sophisticated devices that dilute minority voting strength," Senate Report 10 (discussing § 5). In modifying § 2, Congress thus endorsed our view in White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755 (1973), that "whether the political processes are 'equally open' depends upon a searching practical evaluation of the 'past and present reality,' " Senate Report 30 (quoting 412 U. S., at 766, 770). In a substantial number of voting jurisdictions, that past reality has included such reprehensible practices as ballot box stuffing, outright violence, discretionary registration, property requirements, the poll tax, and the white primary; and other practices censurable when the object of their use is discriminatory, such as at-large elections, runoff requirements, anti-single-shot devices, gerrymandering, the impeachment of officeholders, the annexation or deannexation of territory, and the creation or elimination of elective offices.15 Some of those expedients
15 See generally J. M. Kousser, The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880- 1910 (1974); Kousser, The Undermining of the First Reconstruction, Lessons for the Second, in Minority Vote Dilution 27 (C. Davidson ed. 1984); Hearings on the Extension of the Voting Rights Act before the Subcom-
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