Warren Court - Voting And Reapportionment

Apart from upholding the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Warren Court removed impediments to voting by striking down state poll tax and property qualifications, unreasonable residency requirements, and obstacles to putting third political parties on the ballot.

The Court also changed the makeup of state legislatures by reversing precedent and agreeing to hear legislative reapportionment cases. In REYNOLDS V. SIMS, 377 U.S. 533, 84 S. Ct. 1362, 12 L. Ed. 2d 506 (1964), Warren wrote the opinion that has come to be known as the one person, one vote decision. Reynolds and a series of cases that followed forced state legislatures to be apportioned equally on the basis of population rather than geographic areas. Reapportionment based on population resulted in a shift of political power away from sparsely populated rural areas to metropolitan areas.