William O. Douglas

“ The case is of greater importance than the rights of plaintiffs in this next election may appear to be. We have here a system of discrimination in primary voting that undermines the advances made by the Nixon, Classic, and Allwright cases. Those decisions are defeated by a device as deeply rooted in discrimination as the practice which keeps a man from the voting booth because of his race, creed, or color or which fails to count his vote after it has been cast. ”

“ In Georgia's primary to be held on June 28, 1950, a United States Senator will be nominated. Certainly in a State like Georgia where the Democratic nomination is equivalent to election, it would be a travesty to say that the true election in the constitutional sense comes later.
There is more to the right to vote than the right to mark a piece of paper and drop it in a box or the right to pull a lever in a voting booth. The right to vote includes the right to have the ballot counted. ”

“ There is testimony in the record that only in those areas have Negroes been able to vote in important numbers. Yet the County Unit System heavily disenfranchises that urban Negro population. The County Unit System has indeed been called the 'last loophole' around our decisions holding that there must be no discrimination because of race in primary as well as in general elections.
The racial angle of the case only emphasizes the bite of the decision which sustains the County Unit System of voting. The discrimination against citizens in the more populous counties of Georgia is plain. ”