“ As the action of the entire white voting community, the Jaybird primary is as a practical matter the instrument of those few in this small county who are politically active-the officials of the local Democratic party and, we may assume, the elected officials of the county. As a matter of practical politics, those charged by State law with the duty of assuring all eligible voters an opportunity to participate in the selection of candidates at the primary-the county election officials who are normally leaders in their communities-participate by voting in the Jaybird primary. ”

“ The application of the prohibition of the Fifteenth Amendment to 'any State' is translated by legal jargon to read 'State action.' This phrase gives rise to a false direction in that it implies some impressive machinery or deliberative conduct normally associated with what orators call a sovereign state. The vital requirement is State responsibility-that somewhere, somehow, to some extent, there be an infusion of conduct by officials, panoplied with State power, into any scheme by which colored citizens are denied voting rights merely because they are colored. ”

“ The Jaybird Association was organized in 1889 and from that time until the present has selected, first in mass meetings but for some time by ballot of its members, persons whom the organization indorses for election in the Democratic primary for county office. The Association has never permitted Negroes to participate in its selection of the candidates to be indorsed; balloting is open only to all white citizens of the county qualified under State law to vote. ”

“ The Fifteenth Amendment secures the franchise exercised by citizens of the United States against abridgment by any state on the basis of race or color. In Smith v. Allwright, 1944, 321 U.S. 649, 64 S.Ct. 757, 88 L.Ed. 987, this Court held that the Democratic Party of itself, and perforce any other political party, is prohibited by that Amendment from conducting a racially discriminatory primary election. By the rule of that case, any 'part of the machinery for choosing officials' becomes subject to the Constitution's restraints. ”

“ The only election that has counted in this Texas county for more than fifty years has been that held by the Jaybirds from which Negroes were excluded. The Democratic primary and the general election have become no more than the perfunctory ratifiers of the choice that has already been made in Jaybird elections from which Negroes have been excluded. ”

“ They join the white voting community in proceeding with elaborate formality, in almost all respects parallel to the procedures dictated by Texas law for the primary itself, to express their preferences in a wholly successful effort to withdraw significance from the State-prescribed primary, to subvert the operation of what is formally the law of the State for primaries in this county. ”

“ Petitioners are Negroes who claim that they and all Negroes similarly situated in Fort Bend County, Texas, are denied all voice in the primary elections for county offices by the activities of respondent association, the Jaybird Democratic Association. ”

“ And the statute shows the congressional mandate against discrimination whether the voting on public issues and officials is conducted in community, state or nation. Size is not a standard.
It is significant that precisely the same qualifications as those prescribed by Texas entitling electors to vote at county-operated primaries are adopted as the sole qualifications entitling electors to vote at the county-wide Jaybird primaries with a single proviso-Negroes are excluded. Everyone concedes that such a proviso in the county-operated primaries would be unconstitutional. ”

“ We reverse the Court of Appeals' judgment reversing that of the District Court. We affirm the District Court's holding that the combined Jaybird- Democratic-general election machinery has deprived these petitioners of their right to vote on account of their race and color. ”

“ Drawing a 'line' is necessarily exercising a judgment, however confined the conscientious judgment may be within the bounds of constitutional and statutory provisions, the course of decisions, and the presuppositions of the judicial process. ”

“ Justice Miller speaking for this Court declared that the Amendment's granted right to be free from racial discrimination '* * * should be kept free and pure by congressional enactments whenever that is necessary.' Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U.S. 651, 665, 4 S.Ct. ”