In a loss for voters, the Supreme Court has ruled unanimously against two residents of Texas who had argued that the Texas legislature diluted their votes when it used total population to redraw state Senate districts.
In Evenwel v. Abbott, the Supreme Court allowed states to use total population in redrawing district lines, even though that this includes a large number of noncitizens (legal and illegal), felons, and others who are ineligible to vote.
They claimed that both the number of citizens of voting age and the number of registered voters in their districts deviated substantially—between 31 and 49 percent—from the “ideal” population of a Texas Senate district.
They argued that this disparity significantly diluted their votes in comparison to those of voters who live in districts with large numbers of non-voters.
According to this logic, their votes were worth roughly half those of voters in other districts.
In other words, they claimed that their Senate districts had the same number of representatives as other districts that contained the same number of people but only half the number of eligible voters.
This is a particular problem in Texas, which has almost two million illegal aliens, about seven percent of the state’s population..."
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