Cite as: 520 U. S. 471 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
of race or color," 42 U. S. C. § 1973c, we have consistently interpreted this language in light of the purpose underlying § 5—"to insure that no voting-procedure changes would be made that would lead to a retrogression in the position of racial minorities." Beer, 425 U. S., at 141. Accordingly, we have adhered to the view that the only "effect" that violates § 5 is a retrogressive one. Ibid.; City of Lockhart, 460 U. S., at 134.
Evidence is "relevant" if it has "any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence." Fed. Rule Evid. 401. As we observed in Arlington Heights, 429 U. S., at 266, the impact of an official action is often probative of why the action was taken in the first place since people usually intend the natural consequences of their actions. Thus, a jurisdiction that enacts a plan having a dilutive impact is more likely to have acted with a discriminatory intent to dilute minority voting strength than a jurisdiction whose plan has no such impact. A jurisdiction that acts with an intent to dilute minority voting strength is more likely to act with an intent to worsen the position of minority voters—i. e., an intent to retrogress—than a jurisdiction acting with no intent to dilute. The fact that a plan has a dilutive impact therefore makes it "more probable" that the jurisdiction adopting that plan acted with an intent to retrogress than "it would be without the evidence." To be sure, the link between dilutive impact and intent to retrogress is far from direct, but "the basic standard of relevance . . . is a liberal one," Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U. S. 579, 587 (1993), and one we think is met here.
That evidence of a plan's dilutive impact may be relevant to the § 5 purpose inquiry does not, of course, mean that such evidence is dispositive of that inquiry. In fact, we have previously observed that a jurisdiction's single decision to choose a redistricting plan that has a dilutive impact does not, with-
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