White v. State of Alabama

TJOFLAT, Chief Judge:

The members of Alabama’s appellate courts — the Supreme Court, the Court of Criminal Appeals, and the Court of Civil Appeals1 — are elected to office in at-large partisan elections.2 In this case, Hoover White, a black voter and representative of a class of all black voters in Alabama,3 contends that this at-large election scheme dilutes the voting strength of black voters in Alabama in violation of section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it affords black voters, on account of their race, “less opportunity [than white voters] ... to participate in the political process…