The Supreme Court on Monday ruled unanimously that states may satisfy “one person, one vote” rules by drawing election districts based on the total population, rather than basing election districts on the number of people who are actually eligible to vote. At present, all states with some minor variations, widely use total population for redistricting and that standard is used to allocate congressional districts to the states after each census.
The Court stopped after deciding that the total population passed muster and did not rule on whether any other method of drawing districts could be used. The decision left open the possibility that other methods may be implemented to draw election districts that could be constitutional. However, using anything other than total population would face certain review by the Supreme Court.
Evenwel v. Abbot is considered one of the most important cases on voting rights this term because a decision in the other direction, basing districts on the number of people eligible to vote, would have the consequence of shifting political power away from urban areas, which can be heavily Democratic, to more rural and suburban areas, which are often Republican friendly.
The U.S. population contains millions of people who are not eligible to vote, including children, legal and illegal immigrants, prisoners, and those that are disenfranchised. Many of those persons, except for prisoners, often reside in urban areas.
“What constitutional history and our prior decisions strongly suggest, settled practice confirms. Adopting voter eligible apportionment as constitutional command would upset a well-functioning approach to districting that all 50 states and countless local jurisdictions have followed for decades, even centuries,” said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote the majority decision. “As the Framers of the Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment comprehended, representatives serve all residents, not just those eligible or registered to vote,” Ginsburg added.
