Cite as: 512 U. S. 874 (1994)
Thomas, J., concurring in judgment
the "totality of circumstances," members of a minority group "have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice." 42 U. S. C. § 1973(b). The most natural reading of that language would suggest that citizens have an equal "opportunity" to participate in the electoral process and an equal "opportunity" to elect representatives when they have been given the same free and open access to the ballot as other citizens and their votes have been properly counted. The section speaks in terms of an opportunity—a chance—to participate and to elect, not an assured ability to attain any particular result. And since the ballot provides the formal mechanism for obtaining access to the political process and for electing representatives, it would seem that one who has had the same chance as others to register and to cast his ballot has had an equal opportunity to participate and to elect, whether or not any of the candidates he chooses is ultimately successful.
To be sure, the test in § 2(b) could be read to apply to claims of vote dilution as well. But to conclude, for example, that a multimember districting system had denied a group of voters an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and to elect representatives, a court would have to embark on the extended project in political theory that I described above in Part I of this opinion. In other words, a court would have to develop some theory of the benchmark undiluted voting system that provides minorities with the "fairest" or most "equitable" share of political influence. Undoubtedly, a dizzying array of concepts of political equality might be described to aid in that task, and each could be used to attribute different values to different systems of election. See, e. g., Still, Political Equality and Election Systems, 91 Ethics 375 (1981).23 But the statutory command to deter-23 See also Banzhaf, Multi-Member Electoral Districts—Do They Violate the "One Man, One Vote" Principle, 75 Yale L. J. 1309 (1966) (suggesting that how close different districting systems come to providing persons
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