Hadley v. Junior College District - Apportionment Scheme Ruled Unconstitutional

Next, the Court had to answer the question of whether the apportionment scheme for the elections in this case did in fact violate "one man, one vote." Based upon an examination of the statistical formulas used by the district to determine the make-up of the trustee board, the Court concluded that it did:

Although the statutory scheme reflects to some extent a principle of equal voting power, it does so in a way that does not comport with constitutional requirements. This is so because the Act necessarily results in a systematic discrimination against voters in the more populous school districts . . . Consequently Missouri cannot allocate the junior college trustees according to the statutory formula employed in this case.

In an impassioned dissent, Justice Harlan attacked the decision for, among other things, demonstrating "the pervasiveness of the federal judicial intrusion into state electoral processes that was unleashed by the `one man, one vote' rule of Reynolds v. Sims" (1964). Nevertheless, the majority decision stands as a significant extension of that principal into practically every corner of American politics.