Worst SCOTUS cases

[Citizen Hats]

What ever my personal disappointment in the results of the 2000 election, I can't bring myself to count Bush v. Gore as among the worst. In the counterfactual where the recounts had continued, 1) Bush would have won under all but the loosest counting standards and 2) they probably would have run up against the elector deadline, and the Legislature would have appointed a slate of Republican Electors, as is their constitutional prerogative. Either way, odds are Bush wins.   

What the justices did do, however was (whether they wanted to or not) establish a precedent that all votes must be processed equally within a state as a matter of equal protection of law.  This was of great use to lawyers arguing against Republican attempts to manipulate the electoral rolls going into the 2012 election.  The legal case in Bush v Gore could not have dealt with the voter purges, the confusing ballots, the defective voting machines, and other irregularities which lead to Florida in 2000, but the ruling will be of great assistance in fighting them going forward

[Citizen Hats]

But the thing with that 40 year old data was that there was a process to escape preclearance. Jurisdictions with a record of not being racist, namely a number of Virginia counties

[Citizen Hats]

Not the American way?  The Constitution does not mandate the Equality of States before the law, but it does mandate the equality of citizens before the law, and it mandates that their right to vote not be breached on account of race, and empowers congress take take action in that respect with 'appropriate legislation.'  You can argue that 1960s data is not 'appropriate,' but to argue that states are 'guilty until innocent' in the eyes of civil rights act is the same as making that argument before a parole board