Opinion of the Court
on account of race or color.” 52 U. S. C. §10301(a). What that means, §2 goes on to explain, is that the political processes in the State must be “equally open,” such that minority voters do not “have less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.” §10301(b).
We have understood the language of §2 against the background of the hard-fought compromise that Congress struck. To that end, we have reiterated that §2 turns on the presence of discriminatory effects, not discriminatory intent. See, e.g., Chisom v. Roemer, 501 U. S. 380, 403–404 (1991). And we have explained that “[i]t is patently clear that Congress has used the words ‘on account of race or color’ in the Act to mean ‘with respect to’ race or color, and not to connote any required purpose of racial discrimination.” Gingles, 478 U. S., at 71, n. 34 (plurality opinion) (some alterations omitted). Individuals thus lack an equal opportunity to participate in the political process when a State’s electoral structure operates in a manner that “minimize[s] or cancel[s] out the[ir] voting strength.” Id., at 47. That occurs where an individual is disabled from “enter[ing] into the political process in a reliable and meaningful manner” “in the light of past and present reality, political and otherwise.” White, 412 U. S., at 767, 770. A district is not equally open, in other words, when minority voters face—unlike their majority peers—bloc voting along racial lines, arising against the backdrop of substantial racial discrimination within the State, that renders a minority vote unequal to a vote by a nonminority voter.
The State’s reading of §2, by contrast, runs headlong into our precedent. Alabama asserts that a State’s map does not “abridge[]” a person’s right to vote “on account of race” if the map resembles a sufficient number of race-neutral alternatives. See Brief for Alabama 54–56. But our cases have consistently focused, for purposes of litigation, on the
