About the Project

The Section 2 cases in our dataset were coded along 50 criteria. Terms and categories that may not be self-evident are defined here. For more information on coding practices or the dataset, see our codebook.

• Appointment/State Control: These are Section 2 challenges to a state’s authority to change elected positions to appointed positions, to shrink or enlarge the duties of an elected position, or to allow one set of positions to be elected while a similar set of positions were appointed.
• Dilution: The effect of an electoral practice that minimizes the influence of a particular group of voters. Practices found to be dilutive within the meaning of Section 2 include at-large elections, redistricting plans, and majority vote requirements.
• Considered and Unconsidered Factors: Whether a reviewing court considered and/or found any of the three Gingles preconditions or any of the nine Senate Factors. Occasionally, the court discussed a factor but did not make a determination as to whether the factor had been satisfied; in those instances, the factor was left blank.
• Election Procedures: Electoral rules addressing early voting, voter registration, voter identification, election scheduling, and related measures. These cases are categorized as a subset of non-dilution.
• Fees: A final word decision that addressed a post-liability issue such as attorneys’ fees.
• Final Word: Our term for the final decision in a Section 2 litigation string. In most lawsuits, the final word decision is the most thorough merits decision that both determined whether Section 2 was violated and which was not reversed on appeal. Absent such a final word decision, the database includes the last published decision in the lawsuit that made a substantive ruling on any topic. When an appellate opinion specifically stated that it was agreeing with, concurring with, or otherwise incorporating analysis from a lower court opinion on Gingles preconditions or Senate factors without reciting that analysis, the researchers included the analysis found in the district court’s opinion. Researchers similarly incorporated the lower court’s findings if the appellate court stated that no party challenged a particular finding.
• Intent: A case was coded as finding discriminatory intent if the court explicitly ruled that the defendants engaged in intentional voting discrimination, either under Section 2 or under the Fourteenth Amendment. If the court did not make an explicit determination regarding intentional discrimination, this field was left blank.
• Jurisdiction Covered/Not Covered By Section 5: Researchers determined if a claim arose in a jurisdiction that had been subject to the Section 5 preclearance regime because either the case arose in a jurisdiction that fell within the Section 4(b) coverage formula prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County, or because the case arose in a jurisdiction within a larger jurisdiction that fell under the coverage formula. Researchers coded a jurisdiction as being covered if the jurisdiction was on this list. If a jurisdiction was itself not covered but contained covered jurisdictions, researchers attempted to discern if the challenged practice would affect voters in the covered jurisdictions. If so, the case was coded as occurring in a jurisdiction that was covered by Section 4(b). If not, the case was coded as not covered.
• Liability: A final word decision that addressed the merits of a Section 2 claim. Liability decisions typically resolved a motion to dismiss, a motion for summary judgment, announced a verdict after trial, or resolved an appeal of such decisions.
• Non-dilution: Also known as “vote denial” or “time, place, and manner” claims, non-dilution claims are Section 2 claims that address election procedures, ballot design, felon disenfranchisement statutes, and related measures.
• Plaintiff Group: Cases were categorized by the ethnicity of the plaintiff group or groups bringing the Section 2 challenge, and, specifically, whether the plaintiffs were Black, Latino, American Indian, Asian American, or white. Many cases included plaintiffs of more than one ethnicity. A small portion of dilution cases, coded as “coalition” claims, were brought by two or more plaintiff groups alleging that, together, they were injured by the challenged electoral practice. Finally, the few cases coded as having no plaintiff ethnicity involved a challenge to a racial classification or another practice on behalf of all voters, or did not specify the plaintiff’s ethnicity.
• Plaintiff Success: A case was coded as successful for the plaintiff if it resulted in a change to a challenged practice. Successes include:
  • Issuance of a preliminary injunction, a finding for a plaintiff on the merits, a decision issuing attorneys’ fees in a manner that indicated a plaintiff had been successful on the merits or through settlement, or if the plaintiff achieved some other positive outcome.
  • Cases involving multiple Section 2 claims in which plaintiffs were successful on at least one.
  • Fees or remedy cases in which defendants stipulated that the challenged practice had violated Section 2, even if plaintiffs were unable to obtain attorneys’ fees or the post-settlement relief sought.
• Preliminary: A final word decision on the issuance of a preliminary injunction, evidentiary issue, or other ruling prior to a merits Section 2 claim.
• Violation: A case was coded as a violation if the court found, or the parties stipulated, that the challenged practice was a violation of Section 2.

A note on cases, claims, and successful Section 2 challenges: Cases that involved multiple Section 2 claims were coded as a single case. The number of cases containing multiple distinguishable claims was small, and  dividing  the cases into individual claims threatened to  confuse, rather than clarify, the results of the study. In a small number of cases, case-dependent coding leads to odd results: for instance, both LULAC v. Perry and Abbott v. Perez are coded as plaintiff successes even though, in each case, only one of several challenged districts was struck down under Section 2.

Finally, while the VRI team made every effort to code cases consistently and accurately, judicial reasoning, legal opinions, and the underlying fact patterns often defy easy categorization. Please report any errors, or direct any questions, to law-votingrightsinitiative@umich.edu.