Influence District Law and Legal Definition
Influence district is a voting district in which a racial or ethnic minority group does not constitute a majority of the voters. Influence district does make up a sufficient proportion of the voters to constitute an influential minority. In an influence district, people are able to elect its preferred candidate with a reasonable number of crossover votes from other groups. In Thompson v. Glades County Bd. of County Comm'rs, 493 F.3d 1253 (11th Cir. Fla. 2007), it was held that the concept of an influence district is directly at odds with a voting district in which the minority group constitutes a majority.
The population of an influence district, as its name suggests, includes sufficient members of a minority group to influence substantially an election. However, it is not enough to comprise a majority or super-majority as is necessary for a majority-minority district. While a majority-minority district is defined as having at least a 55 percent minority voting-age population, an influence district exists when members of a minority group compose 25 percent or more of the voting-age population of a district. In some cases, an influence district may also exist when a minority group consists of less than 25 percent of the voting-age population of a district.
