Supreme Court Examines Whether Alabama’s Congressional Districts Violate Voting Rights Act
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which took center stage Tuesday during oral arguments at the Supreme Court, prohibits a state from imposing a “standard, practice, or procedure” that “results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color … .” Courts have found that states violate this provision when they draw new legislative districts that dilute the voting power of minority voters by either packing as many of these voters as possible into a single district or by splitting these voters among various other districts—practices known as “packing” and “cracking” voters.
