WASHINGTON (AP) — A unanimous Supreme Court says an Arizona commission did not violate the principle of one-person, one-vote when it redrew the state’s legislative districts in a way that created some with more residents than others.
The justices on Wednesday rejected a challenge from a group of Republican voters who claimed the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission illegally packed GOP voters into some districts while leaving other Democratic-leaning districts with smaller populations.
A panel of federal judges upheld the new boundaries in 2014 after finding that the commission was trying to comply with a now-nullified provision of the Voting Rights Act.
State officials argued that slight differences in population were not enough to violate the Constitution’s equal-protection clause.
Justice Stephen Breyer said the one-person, one-vote principle “does not demand mathematical perfection.”
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