32
ALLEN v. MILLIGAN
Opinion of the Court
of proceeding in a process or course of action.” Brief for Alabama 51 (internal quotation marks omitted). But the
manner of proceeding in the act of voting entails determining in which districts voters will vote. The fact that the
term “procedure” is preceded by the phrase “qualification or
prerequisite to voting,” 52 U. S. C. §10301(a), does not
change its meaning. It is hard to imagine many more fundamental “prerequisites” to voting than determining where
to cast your ballot or who you are eligible to vote for. Perhaps for that reason, even Alabama does not bear the courage of its conviction on this point. It refuses to argue that
§2 is inapplicable to multimember districting, though its
textual arguments apply with equal force in that context.
The dissent, by contrast, goes where even Alabama does
not dare, arguing that §2 is wholly inapplicable to districting because it “focuses on ballot access and counting” only.
Post, at 2 (opinion of THOMAS, J.). But the statutory text
upon which the dissent relies supports the exact opposite
conclusion. The relevant section provides that “[t]he terms
‘vote’ or ‘voting’ shall include all action necessary to make a
vote effective.” Ibid. (quoting 52 U. S. C. §10310(c)(1); emphasis added). Those actions “includ[e], but [are] not limited to, . . . action[s] required by law prerequisite to voting,
casting a ballot, and having such ballot counted properly
and included in the appropriate totals of votes cast.”
§10310(c)(1). It would be anomalous to read the broad language of the statute—“all action necessary,” “including but
not limited to”—to have the crabbed reach that JUSTICE
THOMAS posits. And we have already discussed why determining where to cast a ballot constitutes a “prerequisite” to
voting, as the statute requires.
The dissent also contends that “applying §2 to districting
rests on systematic neglect of . . . the ballot-access focus of
the 1960s’ voting-rights struggles.” Post, at 3 (opinion of
THOMAS, J.). But history did not stop in 1960. As we have
explained, Congress adopted the amended §2 in response to
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