Holder v. Hall, 512 U.S. 874, 36 (1994)

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Cite as: 512 U. S. 874 (1994)

Thomas, J., concurring in judgment

mark a limit on the authority federal judges may wield to rework electoral systems under our Voting Rights Act jurisprudence. On the contrary, in relying on single-member districting schemes as a touchstone, our cases so far have been somewhat arbitrarily limited to addressing the interests of minority voters who are sufficiently geographically compact to form a majority in a single-member district. See Gingles, supra, at 49-50. There is no reason a priori, however, that our focus should be so constrained. The decision to rely on single-member geographic districts as a mechanism for conducting elections is merely a political choice—and one that we might reconsider in the future. Indeed, it is a choice that has undoubtedly been influenced by the adversary process: In the cases that have come before us, plaintiffs have focused largely upon attacking multimember districts and have offered single-member schemes as the benchmark of an "undiluted" alternative.

But as the destructive effects of our current penchant for majority-minority districts become more apparent, cf. Shaw, supra, courts will undoubtedly be called upon to reconsider adherence to geographic districting as a method for ensuring minority voting power. Already, some advocates have criticized the current strategy of creating majority-minority districts and have urged the adoption of other voting mechanisms—for example, cumulative voting 15 or a system using

15 Under a cumulative voting scheme, a system commonly used in corporations to protect the interests of minority shareholders, see R. Clark, Corporate Law § 9.1.3, pp. 361-366 (1986), each voter has as many votes as there are posts to be filled, and the voter may cast as many of his votes as he wishes for a single candidate. The system thus allows a numerical minority to concentrate its voting power behind a given candidate without requiring that the minority voters themselves be concentrated into a single district. For a complete description of the mechanics of cumulative voting, see Zimmerman, The Federal Voting Rights Act and Alternative Election Systems, 19 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 621, 654-657 (1978).

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