Case name: Gray v. Sanders

Opinion filed: 1963-03-18

Docket No.: 112

Citations:
• 9 L. Ed. 2d 821
• 83 S. Ct. 801
• 372 U.S. 368
• 1963 U.S. LEXIS 1944

Case holding summaries:
• political party's actions in conducting state-regulated primary constitute state action
• holding that state regulation of the preliminary phase of the election process may constitute state action
• "The conception of political equality from the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Amendments can mean only one thing——one person, one vote."
• "The conception of political equality from the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth, Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Amendments can mean only one thing——one person, one vote."
• "the Constitution visualizes no preferred class of voters but equality among those who meet the basic qualifications"
• locating the source of the one-person, one-vote requirement in the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
• “[A]ny person whose right to vote is impaired has standing to sue” (citations omitted)
• invalidating Georgia's county-unit method of voting, which gave disproportionate weight to rural voters
• "We agree with that result and conclude that state regulation of this preliminary phase of the election process makes it state action."
• political primary constitutes state action where state enforces exclusion of certain potential voters
• invalidating Georgia primary scheme where candidates were selected under a "county unit" system that effectively weighted rural votes more heavily than urban votes
• legality of state statute regulating primary elections
• county unit system that weighted rural votes more heavily than urban votes
• explaining that the system “weight[ed] the rural vote more heavily than the urban vote and weight[ed] some small rural counties heavier than other larger rural counties”
• explaining that the system “weight[ed] the rural vote more heavily than the urban vote and weight[ed] some small rural counties heavier than other larger rural counties”
• describing the principle of “one person, one vote”
• describing the principle of “one person, one vote”
• invalidating primary system that diluted individual's vote in a primary
• “The concept of ‘we the people’ under the Constitution visualizes no preferred class of voters but equality among those who meet the basic qualifications.”
• any person whose right to vote is impaired has standing to sue

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