Take Arizona, where Mitt Romney won by nine percentage points in 2012. The Democrats have a pretty solid congressional map there. Arizona’s heaviest Democratic district — Phoenix’s Seventh Congressional District — had just 141,357 voters. No Republican district had fewer than 259,113 voters. The average congressional district in Arizona favored Mr. Romney by just 4.5 points.
Not all of the turnout bias is a result of ineligible voters. The turnout rate among adult citizen Hispanics in these same areas is quite low. Even if the court required equal numbers of eligible voters, the Democrats would still retain an edge because of lower turnout among those voters who are eligible.
But if the court requires equal eligible-voter districts, the size of this bias would basically be cut in half.
Here’s one way to think about it: If districts are redrawn with equal numbers of eligible voters, today’s heavily Republican, white, non-Hispanic districts will have to give up excess voters to less Republican districts, reducing their wasted vote problem and making other districts more conservative.
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