Cite as: 512 U. S. 874 (1994)
Opinion of Stevens, J.
clear that Congress intended the 1982 amendment to cover nonaccess claims like those in Bolden and Gomillion.4
II
Justice Thomas' narrow interpretation of the words "voting qualification . . . standard, practice, or procedure," if adopted, would require us to overrule Allen and the cases that have adhered to its reading of the critical statutory language. The radical character of that suggested interpretation is illustrated by the following passage from an opinion decided only nine years after Allen:
"The Court's decisions over the past 10 years have given § 5 the broad scope suggested by the language of the Act. We first construed it in Allen v. State Board of Elections, [393 U. S. 544 (1969)]. There our examination of the Act's objectives and original legislative history led us to interpret § 5 to give it 'the broadest possible scope,' 393 U. S., at 567, and to require prior federal scrutiny of 'any state enactment which altered the election law in a covered State in even a minor way.' Id., at 566. In so construing § 5, we unanimously rejected— as the plain terms of the Act would themselves have seemingly required—the argument of an appellee that § 5 should apply only to enactments affecting who may register to vote. 393 U. S., at 564. Our decisions have required federal preclearance of laws changing the location of polling places, see Perkins v. Matthews, 400 U. S.
4 We recently confirmed that interpretation of the 1982 amendment, stating: "Moreover, there is no question that the terms 'standard, practice, or procedure' are broad enough to encompass the use of multimember districts to minimize a racial minority's ability to influence the outcome of an election covered by § 2." Chisom v. Roemer, 501 U. S. 380, 390 (1991). Though disagreeing with the Court's holding that the statute covered judicial elections, even the dissenters in that case agreed that the amended § 2 "extends to vote dilution claims for the elections of representatives . . . ." Id., at 405.
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