Cite as: 532 U. S. 234 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
American voting strength, not the district's Democratic voting strength. Ibid.
This Court reversed. We agreed with the District Court that the new district's shape, the way in which it split towns and counties, and its heavily African-American voting population all helped the plaintiffs' case. 526 U. S., at 547- 549. But neither that evidence by itself, nor when coupled with the evidence of Democratic registration, was sufficient to show, on summary judgment, the unconstitutional race-based objective that plaintiffs claimed. That is because there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the evidence also was consistent with a constitutional political objective, namely, the creation of a safe Democratic seat. Id., at 549-551.
We pointed to the affidavit of an expert witness for defendants, Dr. David W. Peterson. Dr. Peterson offered to show that, because North Carolina's African-American voters are overwhelmingly Democratic voters, one cannot easily distinguish a legislative effort to create a majority-African-American district from a legislative effort to create a safely Democratic district. Id., at 550. And he also provided data showing that registration did not indicate how voters would actually vote. Id., at 550-551. We agreed that data showing how voters actually behave, not data showing only how those voters are registered, could affect the outcome of this litigation. Ibid. We concluded that the case was "not suited for summary disposition" and we reversed the District Court. Id., at 554.
C
On remand, the parties undertook additional discovery. The three-judge District Court held a 3-day trial. And the court again held (over a dissent) that the legislature had unconstitutionally drawn District 12's new 1997 boundaries. It found that the legislature had tried "(1) [to] cur[e] the [previous district's] constitutional defects" while also "(2) drawing the plan to maintain the existing partisan bal-
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