6 LOUISIANA v. CALLAIS Opinion of the Court involved a “vote dilution” claim, i.e., a claim that a districting scheme impermissibly lessens the weight of the votes of minority voters. In White, the Court affirmed a judgment that Texas had used two multimember electoral districts “invidiously to cancel out or minimize the voting strength of racial groups.” Id., at 765. According to White, a vote-dilution plaintiff had to show that “the political processes leading to nomination and election were not equally open to participation by the group in question—that its members had less opportunity than did other residents in the district to participate in the political processes and to elect legislators of their choice.” Id., at 766. The decision in White did not say anything one way or another about proof of discriminatory purpose or intent, but the Court’s rationale rested on evidence that gave rise to an obvious inference that the State had set out to prevent the election of candidates preferred by minority voters. The Texas districting scheme generally used single-member districts but employed multimember districts in two parts of the State where single-member districts might have resulted in the election of minority candidates. The Court observed that the use of multimember districts is not “necessarily” or “per se” unconstitutional, but it recognized that such districts can be employed to achieve discriminatory ends. Id., at 765; see also Perkins v. Matthews, 400 U. S. 379, 389 (1971) (observing that a switch to at-large elections could be a “metho[d] to maintain white control of the political process”); Allen v. State Bd. of Elections, 393 U. S. 544, 569 (1969) (explaining that a change to at-large voting could nullify the ability of minority voters to elect their candidate of choice). The Court also cited strong evidence that the legislature had done so in the case at hand. Writing at a time when the Democratic Party was dominant in much of Texas, the Court noted that a “white-dominated organization,” which had “effective control” over candidate slating