WASHINGTON — Only election districts in which minorities make up at least half of the voting-age population are entitled to the protections of a part of the Voting Rights Act that seeks to ensure and preserve minority voting power, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday.
Officials in North Carolina had argued that the act required them to help maintain black influence at the voting booth by creating a district that included about 39 percent of the black voting-age population. The theory was that the law protected black voters who joined with white “crossover voters” to elect a candidate of the black voters’ choice. The court rejected that argument by a 5-to-4 vote.
