Case Summary

In 1962, a group of Georgia voters filed a federal lawsuit against Georgia’s Secretary of State and the State Democratic Executive Committee challenging the state’s “county unit system” for statewide offices’ primary elections as diluting the voting strength of more populated counties in violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses. Under this system, the candidate who got the most votes in a county would receive all of that county’s “vote units” and the candidate who received the most “vote units” would win, leaving rural counties with 1/3 of the state’s population controlling a majority of vote units.

  • On March 18, 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the county unit system as unconstitutional, recognizing “one person, one vote” as a 14th Amendment constitutional principle for the first time. It explained the concept of “political equality” underpinning the Declaration of Independence, the 15th, 17th, and 19th Amendments, and prior court decisions could only be understood as requiring that equality of voting power is not unconstitutionally evaded.

Significance: Recognized, for the first time, the constitutional principle of "one person, one vote" as a guiding standard for election law and apportionment cases.

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U.S. Supreme Court - 372 U.S. 368 (1963)