Opinion of the Court
the number of potential maps may be orders of magnitude higher: “the universe of all possible connected, population-balanced districting plans that satisfy the state’s requirements,” it explains, “is likely in the range of googols.” Duchin & Spencer 768. Two million maps, in other words, is not many maps at all. And Alabama’s insistent reliance on that number, however powerful it may sound in the abstract, is thus close to irrelevant in practice. What would the next million maps show? The next billion? The first trillion of the trillion trillions? Answerless questions all. See, e.g., Redistricting Brief 2 (“[I]t is computationally intractable, and thus effectively impossible, to generate a complete enumeration of all potential districting plans. [Even] algorithms that attempt to create a manageable sample of that astronomically large universe do not consistently identify an average or median map.”); Duchin & Spencer 768 (“[A] comprehensive survey of [all districting plans within a State] is impossible.”).
Section 2 cannot require courts to judge a contest of computers when there is no reliable way to determine who wins, or even where the finish line is.
3
Alabama’s final contention with respect to the race-neutral benchmark is that it requires plaintiffs to demonstrate that any deviations between the State’s enacted plan and race-neutral alternatives “can be explained only by racial discrimination.” Brief for Alabama 44 (emphasis added).
We again find little merit in Alabama’s proposal. As we have already explained, our precedents and the legislative compromise struck in the 1982 amendments clearly rejected treating discriminatory intent as a requirement for liability under §2. See, e.g., Chisom, 501 U. S., at 403–404; Shaw, 509 U. S., at 641; Reno v. Bossier Parish School Bd., 520 U. S. 471, 481–482 (1997). Yet Alabama’s proposal is
