Urban and Rural Voters Are Equal
Main body
Georgia used a county unit voting system in primary elections, the practical effect of which was that the vote of each citizen counted for less and less as the population of his county increased. This system ended up giving rural counties a majority of the unit votes, even though rural counties made up only about a third of the state’s population. James Sanders, a voter in Georgia's most populous county (Fulton) objected, saying that the system gave his vote less influence on the nomination of candidates than the vote of a rural voter. The Court agreed, holding that the weighting of votes through the county unit system violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the doctrine of “one person, one vote” by giving more voting power to residents of small rural counties.
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