Facts—After the initial vote count in the Florida presidential election of 2000, electors pledged to Republican candidates George Bush and Dick Cheney led Democrats Al Gore and Joe Lieberman by a mere 1,784 votes out of more than 4.8 million…
Facts—After being entitled to three more U.S. representatives after the 1990 census, Texas, in an attempt to comply with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, created and reconfigured three districts to ensure a majority of African Americans and Hispanics. After…
Facts—After the 1990 census, North Carolina became entitled to a twelfth seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. After the U.S. attorney general objected to a plan that included only one predominately black district, the state created a second with…
Facts—James Blumstein moved to Tennessee on June 12, 1970, to assume his duties to teach law at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. He attempted to register to vote on July 1, 1970. Tennessee law authorized the registration only of persons who,…
Facts—Oregon, Arizona, Texas, and Idaho resisted compliance with the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970. Original actions were brought to question the validity of the statute. The Voting Rights Act Amendments provided for three things: (1) the reduction of the…
Facts—Taxpayers and voters of Jefferson County, Alabama, challenged the apportionment of the Alabama legislature, the most recent of which was based on the 1900 federal census despite the requirement of the state constitution that the legislature be apportioned decennially. As…
Facts—Qualified voters of Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District brought action to set aside a Georgia statute establishing congressional districts. The population of the Fifth District was two to three times greater than that of some other congressional districts in the state.…
Facts—In 1957, the Alabama state legislature passed Local Act No. 140 changing the boundaries of Tuskegee from a square to a twenty-eight-sided figure. This virtually excluded African Americans from being able to vote in city elections. A number of blacks…
Facts—Lonnie E. Smith, an African American citizen of Texas, sued for damages for the refusal of election and associate election judges to give him a ballot to vote in the primary election of July 27, 1940, for the nomination of…
Facts—In Louisiana, a primary election to nominate a party candidate for representative in Congress was conducted at public expense and regulated by state statute. Candidates to be voted on in the general election were restricted to primary nominees, to persons,…