Cite as: 522 U. S. 34 (1997)
Per Curiam
ney General for preclearance, but the cover letter did not mention the majority-vote provision. The Attorney General objected to it nevertheless, interpreting the submission as effecting a change from plurality to majority voting. The Government filed suit against Monroe and city officials in 1994 and prevailed in the District Court.
II
The 1968 code must be the centerpiece of this case, for it defers where city charters are specific and provides a default rule where they are not. If a city charter requires plurality voting, the deference rule in the first sentence of the 1968 code section allows the municipal charter provision to take effect. Monroe, however, does not have and has not had a plurality-vote provision in its charter. The first sentence simply does not apply here because no charter provision triggers its rule of deference to municipal law. Thus, the second sentence's default rule of state law governs, requiring Monroe to use majority voting. Since the Attorney General pre-cleared the default rule, Monroe may implement it.
The District Court reached a contrary conclusion, relying on a single footnote in City of Rome v. United States, 446 U. S. 156, 169-170, n. 6 (1980). As the District Court put it: "The [Rome] Court's rationale focused squarely on the notion that [Georgia's] submission of the 1968 Statewide Code did not put before the Attorney General the propriety of changes in the voting practices of individual cities." 962 F. Supp., at 1513.
The court's reliance on the footnote was misplaced. Unlike this case, which concerns the default rule in the second sentence of the 1968 code section, the City of Rome footnote concerned the deference rule in the first sentence. Rome's pre-1966 charter had an explicit requirement of plurality voting. When the General Assembly amended Rome's charter to provide for majority voting, no one sought to preclear this or other changes. "Rome [later] argue[d] that the Attorney
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