922
Thomas, J., concurring in judgment
Finally, as our cases have shown, reading § 2(a) to reach beyond laws that regulate in some way citizens' access to the ballot turns the section into a command for courts to evaluate abstract principles of political theory in order to develop rules for deciding which votes are "diluted" and which are not. See generally supra, at 894-903. Common sense would suggest that we should not lightly interpret the Act to require courts to address such matters so far outside the normal bounds of judicial competence, and the mere use of three more general terms at the end of the list of regulated practices in § 2(a) cannot properly be understood to incorporate such an expansive command into the Act.
Properly understood, therefore, § 2(a) is a provision designed to protect access to the ballot, and in regulating "standard[s], practice[s], and procedure[s]," it reaches only "those state laws that [relate to] either voter qualifications or the manner in which elections are conducted." Allen, 393 U. S., at 591 (Harlan, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). The section thus covers all manner of registration requirements, the practices surrounding registration (including the selection of times and places where registration takes place and the selection of registrars), the locations of polling places, the times polls are open, the use of paper ballots as opposed to voting machines, and other similar aspects of the voting process that might be manipulated to deny any citizen the right to cast a ballot and have it properly counted. The
to alter the understanding of the Act announced in Bolden, it did so explicitly in the text of the statute. As I explain more fully, infra, at 923-925, the 1982 amendments modified § 2 to eliminate the requirement under Bolden that § 2 plaintiffs, like plaintiffs under the Fifteenth Amendment, show that a challenged practice was adopted with a discriminatory intent, see 446 U. S., at 62-63, and replaced that test with specific language in § 2(b) setting a standard based simply on discriminatory results. See Pub. L. 97-205, § 3, 96 Stat. 134. Had Congress intended to alter the understanding that § 2 protects a concept of the "right to vote" that does not extend to prohibit vote dilution, it likely would have addressed that aspect of Bolden explicitly as well.
Page: Index Previous 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007