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ALLEN v. MILLIGAN

Opinion of the Court

even more demanding than the intent test Congress jettisoned. Demonstrating discriminatory intent, we have long held, “does not require a plaintiff to prove that the challenged action rested solely on racially discriminatory purpose[].” Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 265 (1977) (emphasis added); see also Reno, 520 U. S., at 488. Alabama’s proposed approach stands in sharp contrast to all this, injecting into the effects test of §2 an evidentiary standard that even our purposeful discrimination cases eschew.

C

Alabama finally asserts that the Court should outright stop applying §2 in cases like these because the text of §2 does not apply to single-member redistricting and because §2 is unconstitutional as the District Court applied it here. We disagree on both counts.

Alabama first argues that §2 does not apply to single-member redistricting. Echoing Justice Thomas’s concurrence in Holder v. Hall, Alabama reads §2’s reference to “standard, practice, or procedure” to mean only the “methods for conducting a part of the voting process that might … be used to interfere with a citizen’s ability to cast his vote.” 512 U. S., at 917–918 (opinion concurring in judgment). Examples of covered activities would include “registration requirements, … the locations of polling places, the times polls are open, the use of paper ballots as opposed to voting machines, and other similar aspects of the voting process.” Id., at 922. But not “a single-member districting system or the selection of one set of districting lines over another.” Id., at 923.

This understanding of §2 cannot be reconciled with our precedent. As recounted above, we have applied §2 to States’ districting maps in an unbroken line of decisions stretching four decades. See supra, at 11; see also Brnovich, 594 U. S., at ___, n. 5 (slip op., at 7, n. 5) (collecting cases).