Cite as: 585 U. S. ____ (2018) 37 Opinion of the Court sion on the §2 issue and advised the plaintiffs to consider at the remedial phase of the case whether they preferred to have two districts that might not perform or just one safe district. Id., at 783. The court’s decision cannot be sustained on this ground, since its finding of discriminatory intent is erroneous. The only other reason provided by the court was the observation that MALC “failed to show” that two majorityLatino districts in Nueces County would not perform. Id., at 782. This observation twisted the burden of proof beyond recognition. It suggested that a plaintiff might succeed on its §2 claim because its expert failed to show that the necessary factual basis for the claim could not be established.27 Courts cannot find §2 effects violations on —————— at 254a), and the District Court relied solely on the “evidence of the use of race in drawing the lines in Nueces County” to find a one person, one vote violation. Id., at 255a; see also id., at 254a (“[T]he State intentionally discriminated against minority voters by overpopulating minority districts and underpopulating Anglo districts”). Even assuming that a court could find a one person, one vote violation on the basis of such a small deviation, cf. Brown v. Thomson, 462 U. S. 835, 842–843 (1983) (noting that deviations under 10% are generally insufficient to show invidious discrimination), the District Court erred in relying on its unsound finding regarding racial discrimination. Moreover, plaintiffs rejected any separate one person, one vote claims before the District Court, Tr. 22 (July 10, 2017), and they have not mentioned such a claim as a separate theory in their briefing in this Court. 27 The District Court’s belief that simple Latino majorities in Nueces County might be sufficient to create opportunity districts—and that Texas should have known as much—conflicts with other parts of its decision. With respect to numerous other districts, the District Court chided Texas for focusing on bare numbers and not considering real opportunity to elect. See, e.g., C. J. S. 134a (“[T]he court rejects [the] bright-line rule that any HCVAP-majority district is by definition a Latino opportunity district” because it “may still lack real electoral opportunity” (internal quotation marks omitted)); H. J. S. 121a (Texas “increase[d the Latino population] while simultaneously ensuring that election success rates remained minimally improved”).