Cite as: 512 U. S. 874 (1994)
Thomas, J., concurring in judgment
section does not cover, however, the choice of a multimember over a single-member districting system or the selection of one set of districting lines over another, or any other such electoral mechanism or method of election that might reduce the weight or influence a ballot may have in controlling the outcome of an election.
Of course, this interpretation of the terms "standard, practice, or procedure" effectively means that § 2(a) does not provide for any claims of what we have called vote "dilution." But that is precisely the result suggested by the text of the statute. Section 2(a) nowhere uses the term "vote dilution" or suggests that its goal is to ensure that votes are given their proper "weight." And an examination of § 2(b) does not suggest any different result. It is true that in construing § 2 to reach vote dilution claims in Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U. S. 30 (1986), the Court relied largely on the gloss on § 2(b) supplied in the legislative history of the 1982 amendments to the Act. See id., at 43-46. But the text of § 2(b) supplies a weak foundation indeed for reading the Act to reach such claims.
As the Court concluded in Gingles, the 1982 amendments incorporated into the Act, and specifically into § 2(b), a "results" test for measuring violations of § 2(a). That test was intended to replace, for § 2 purposes, the "intent" test the Court had announced in Bolden for voting rights claims under § 2 of the Voting Rights Act and under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Section 2(a) thus prohibits certain state actions that may "resul[t] in a denial or abridgement" of the right to vote, and § 2(b) incorporates virtually the exact language of the "results test" employed by the Court in White v. Regester, 412 U. S. 755 (1973), and applied in constitutional voting rights cases before our decision in Bolden. The section directs courts to consider whether "based on the totality of circumstances," a state practice results in members of a minority group "hav[ing] less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in
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