Cite as: 539 U. S. 461 (2003)
Souter, J., dissenting
" 'Unpacking' African American districts may have positive or negative consequences for the statewide electoral strength of African American voters. To the extent that voting patterns suggest that minority voters are in a better position to join forces with other segments of the population to elect minority preferred candidates, a decrease in a district's BVAP may have little or no effect on minority voting strength." 195 F. Supp. 2d 25, 76 (DC 2002).
See id., at 78 ("[T]he Voting Rights Act allows states to adopt plans that move minorities out of districts in which they formerly constituted a majority of the voting population, provided that racial divisions have healed to the point that numerical reductions will not necessarily translate into reductions in electoral power"); id., at 84 ("[T]he mere fact that BVAP decreases in certain districts is not enough to deny preclearance to a plan under Section 5").2
The District Court recognized that the key to understanding the impact of drops in a district's BVAP on the minority group's "effective exercise of the electoral franchise," Beer, 425 U. S., at 141, is the level of racial polarization. If racial elements consistently vote in separate blocs, decreasing the proportion of black voters will generally reduce the chance that the minority group's favored candidate will be elected; whereas in districts with low racial bloc voting or significant white crossover voting, a decrease in the black proportion may have no effect at all on the minority's opportunity to elect their candidate of choice. See, e. g., 195 F. Supp. 2d, at 84 ("[R]acial polarization is critically important because its presence or absence in the Senate Districts challenged by the United States goes a long way to determining whether
2 Indeed, the other plans approved by the District Court, Georgia's State House plan, 195 F. Supp. 2d, at 95, congressional plan, ibid., and the interim plan approved for the State Senate, 204 F. Supp. 2d 4, 7 (DC 2002), all included decreases in BVAP in particular districts.
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