Abstract
The analysis enables a thesis to be formulated, according to which the rule of substantive equality of elections, despite its interpretation out of the constitution by the Supreme Court already in the 1960s, means a standard which is still being filled with legal contents via jurisprudence reacting to the practical problems of its implementation. Today, there is no longer any doubt that this rule has become an important element of the law of the land, although the disputes claiming that the Supreme Court - while acting with a right purpose in mind - has gone too far with its interpretation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution will not cease. The Supreme Court acted under the conditions of societal pressure, however, and the consequences of the reapportionment revolution confirm that this intervention of the Supreme Court yielded positive effects in terms of democratic constitutional transformations.
The one person - one vote principle, which takes into account the quantitative aspects of substantive equality, is widely applied in the USA today and the standards developed by the Supreme Court guide the conduct of state authorities in this area. Much more complex is the problem of the qualitative aspects of material equality. The Supreme Court has laid the groundwork for declaring the practice of gerrymandering as unconstitutional, but an open issue, not fully clarified by the Supreme Court, is the rationale for determining when an unconstitutional practice occurs, as well as which groups can claim such a discrimination.
In contrast, another problem, related to the qualitative aspect of substantive equality of elections, has become of key importance in the contemporary constitutional practice. It is the phenomenon of multiple seat constituencies that is the most controversial today, and racial and ethnic minorities perceive this very mechanism, and especially the election of authorities by the at large method, as the greatest threat to the realisation of their interests. They believe that - as has been repeatedly confirmed by electoral practice - the “winner takes it all” scheme in a multiple seat constituency leads to a situation where the majority elects its representatives, while minority groups do not have the opportunity they would have had if the multiple seat constituency had been split into single seat constituencies, because then at least in one of them a chance to elect the candidate preferred by the minority groups could have materialised.
Contemporary cases of discrimination, in view of the widespread application of the one person - one vote principle, are therefore nowadays related to the more subtle, much more difficult to legally resolve and practically enforce sphere of ensuring an appropriate (taking into account the legitimate interests of identifiable social groups) composition of elected bodies. It is worth noting in this regard that this applies in principle only to the qualitative aspect of substantive equality, which is an expression of the specific approach of American jurisprudence and constitutional law science, which deviates from the classical understanding of substantive equality provided for in legal and constitutional literature.
The struggle for substantive equality of elections has thus undergone a significant evolution: from drastic and widespread practice violating the substantive equality of elections through malapportionment (before the Supreme Court intervention and the reapportionment revolution), to the one person – one vote rule becoming an unquestionable constitutional standard and the legal protection bodies focussing on the much more subtle manifestations of violations of the substantive equality, which leads to a historical clash between the shaped constitutional structures and the dynamics of ethnic processes, and in particular, with the increasing participation of racial and ethnic minorities in the societal structure and their increasing political aspirations.
