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120 P.3d 217 Page 22 108 Hawai'i 318, 120 P.3d 217 (Cite as: 108 Hawai'i 318, 120 P.3d 217) equal representation,” the commission also believed stitutionality of a redistricting plan pragmatically that the plan should “keep to the old district lines as acknowledges that government must, in certain cir- much as possible to avoid inconveniencing the vot-cumstances, be allowed to pursue redistricting poli- ers.”Id. at 833. The rational policy of “voter conven-cies that incidentally enhance the representational ience,” proffered by the commission in formal testi-power of some members of the electorate at the ex- mony, thus justified the plan's incremental erosion of pense of others. It was never intended to function as a equal representation. Id. curative device for excusing, after the fact, a reappor- tionment authority's gross computational errors or inadvertent methodological mistakes-especially Riley accordingly stands for the far from novel where, as here, those missteps were solely responsi- proposition that, where a redistricting plan's total ble for tainting the redistricting plan with the pre- population deviation exceeds 10 percent, the redis- sumption of unconstitutionality. tricting authority must step forward and articulate some rational justification for the deviation. See Voinovich v. Quilter, 507 U.S. 146, 161, 113 S.Ct. The right of equal representation is far too hard- 1149, 122 L.Ed.2d 500 (1993).Riley does not address won a liberty for its erosion to be justified so blithely. the far different factual situation at issue here, where Accordingly, I must dissent. a redistricting authority, in mistaken reliance on an inaccurate population count, formulates a redistrict- Hawai‘i,2005. ing plan that was never intended to be presumptively Citizens for Equitable and Responsible Government unconstitutional. Neither Riley, nor for that matter, v.County of Hawaii any of the other cases cited by the majority, endorses 108 Hawai'i 318, 120 P.3d 217 the majority's contention that a presumptively uncon- stitutional redistricting plan may be “rationalized” END OF DOCUMENT when the redistricting authority, due to an unrealized computational error, inadvertently devises a plan that exhibits a total population deviation in excess of 10 percent. The dearth of authority supporting that conten- tion is unsurprising. The fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution generally requires that a reapportionment plan's total population deviation be less than 10 percent to pass constitutional muster. Brown v. Thomson, 462 U.S. 835, 842-843, 103 S.Ct. 2690, 77 L.Ed.2d 214 (1983). Nonetheless, because “[m]athematical exactness or precision is hardly a workable constitutional requirement,” Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 577, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964), the fourteenth amendment tolerates a **237 *338 limited degree of divergence “from a strict population standard,” provided that the plan as a whole is “based on legitimate considerations inci- dent to the effectuation of a rational state policy.” Id. at 579. In other words, countervailing state interests may, at times, permit a less than numerically equal redistricting plan, and a reapportionment authority is not necessarily remiss in pursuing those interests at the expense of perfect numerical equality among the voting districts. The foregoing framework for assessing the con- © 2011 Thomson Reuters. No Claim to Orig. US Gov. Works.