South v. Peters/Opinion of the Court

The Georgia statute which appellants attack as violative of the Fourteenth and Seventeenth Amendments provides that county unit votes shall determine the outcome of a primary election. Each county is allotted a number of unit votes, ranging from six for the eight most populous counties, to two for most of the counties. The candidate who receives the highest popular vote in the county is awarded the appropriate number of unit votes. Appellants, residents of the most populous county in the state, contend that their votes and those of all other voters in that county have on the average but one-tenth the weight of those in the other counties. Urging that this amounts to an unconstitutional discrimination against them, appellants brought this suit to restrain adherence to the statute in the forthcoming Democratic Party primary for United States Senator, Governor and other state offices.

The court below dismissed appellants' petition. We affirm. Federal courts consistently refuse to exercise their equity powers in cases posing political issues arising from a state's geographical distribution of electoral strength among its political subdivisions. See MacDougall v. Green, 1948, 335 U.S. 281, 69 S.Ct. 1; Colegrove v. Green, 1946, 328 U.S. 549, 66 S.Ct. 1198, 90 L.Ed. 1432; Wood v. Broom, 1932, 287 U.S. 1, 8, 53 S.Ct. 1, 3, 77 L.Ed. 131; cf. Johnson v. Stevenson, 5 Cir., 1948, 170 F.2d 108.

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom Mr. Justice BLACK concurs, dissenting.