50 Opinion of the Court Similarly, if one district has between 50% and 66%% of the enumeration it elects three trustees, and if one district has more than 66%% it elects four trustees. This scheme thus allocates increasingly more trustees to large districts as they represent an increasing proportion of the total enumeration. Although the statutory scheme reflects to some extent a principle of equal voting power, it does so in a way that does not comport with constitutional requirements. This is so because the Act necessarily results in a systematic discrimination against voters in the more populous school districts. This discrimination occurs because whenever a large district's percentage of the total enumeration falls within a certain percentage range it is always allocated the number of trustees corresponding to the bottom of that range. Unless a particular large district has exactly 33% %, 50%, or 66%% of the total enumeration it will always have proportionally fewer trustees than the small districts. As has been pointed out, in the case of the Kansas City School District approximately 60% of the total enumeration entitles that district to only 50% of the trustees. Thus while voters in large school districts may frequently have less effective voting power than residents of small districts, they can never have more. Such built-in discrimination against voters in large districts cannot be sustained as a sufficient. compliance with the constitutional mandate that each person's vote count as much as another's, as far as practicable. Consequently Missouri cannot allocate the junior college trustees according to the statutory formula employed in this case. We would be faced with a dif 8 Mo. Rev. Stat. § 178.820 (Cum. Supp. 1967). There is some question in this case whether school enumeration figures, rather than actual population figures, can be used as a basis of apportionment. Cf. Burns v. Richardson, 384 U. S. 73, Opinion of the Court 397 U.S. ferent question if the deviation from equal apportionment presented in this case resulted from a plan that did not contain a built-in bias in favor of small districts, but rather from the inherent mathematical complications in equally apportioning a small number of trustees among a limited number of component districts. We have said before that mathematical exactitude is not required, Wesberry, supra, at 18, Reynolds, supra, at 577, but a plan that does not automatically discriminate in favor of certain districts is. In holding that the guarantee of equal voting strength for each voter applies in all elections of governmental officials, we do not feel that the States will be inhibited in finding ways to insure that legitimate political goals of representation are achieved. We have previously upheld against constitutional challenge an election scheme that required that candidates be residents of certain districts that did not contain equal numbers of people. Dusch v. Davis, 387 U. S. 112 (1967). Since all the officials in that case were elected at large, the right of each voter was given equal treatment." We have also held that where a State chooses to select members of an official body by appointment rather than election, and that choice does not itself offend the Constitution, the fact that each official does not "represent" the same number of people does not deny those people equal protection of the laws. Sailors v. Board of Education, 387 U. S. 105 (1967); cf. Fortson v. Morris, 385 U. S. 231 (1966). And a State may, in certain cases, limit the 90-95 (1966). There is no need to decide this question at this time since, even if school enumeration is a permissible basis, the present statute fails to apportion trustees constitutionally. 10 The statute involved in this case provides that trustees who are elected from component districts rather than at large must be residents of the district from which they are elected. Mo. Rev. Stat. § 178.820 (2) (Cum. Supp. 1967). right to vote to a particular group or class of people. As we said before, "[v]iable local governments may need many innovations, numerous combinations of old and new devices, great flexibility in municipal arrangements to meet changing urban conditions. We see nothing in the Constitution to prevent experimentation." Sailors, supra, at 110-111. But once a State has decided to use the process of popular election and "once the class of voters is chosen and their qualifications specified, we see no constitutional way by which equality of voting power may be evaded," Gray v. Sanders, 372 U. S. 368, 381 (1963). For the reasons set forth above the judgment below is reversed and the case is remanded to the Missouri Supreme Court for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. Reversed and remanded. MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE STEWART join, dissenting. Today's decision demonstrates, to a degree that no other case has, the pervasiveness of the federal judicial intrusion into state electoral processes that was unleashed by the "one man, one vote" rule of Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533 (1964). Reynolds established that rule for the apportionment of state legislatures, thereby denying States the right to take into account in the structuring of their legislatures any historical, geographical, economic, or social considerations, or any of the many other practical and subtle factors that have always been recognized as playing a legitimate part in the practice of politics. Four years later, in Avery v. Midland County, 390 U. S. 474 (1968), the "one man, one vote" rule was extended to many kinds of local governmental units, thereby affecting to an unknown extent the organi HARLAN, J., dissenting 397 U.S. zational integrity of some 80,000 such units throughout the country, and constricting the States in the use of the electoral process in the establishment of new ones. And today, the Court holds the "one man, one vote" rule applicable to the various boards of trustees of Missouri's junior college system, and the case forebodes, if indeed it does not decide, that the rule is to be applied to every elective public body, no matter what its nature. While I deem myself bound by Reynolds and Avery— despite my continued disagreement with them as constitutional holdings (see my dissenting opinions in Reynolds, 377 U. S., at 589, and in Avery, 390 U. S., at 486)—I do not think that either of these cases, or any other in this Court, justifies the present decision. I therefore dissent, taking off from Avery in what is about to be said. I In Avery the Court acknowledged that "the states' varied, pragmatic approach in establishing governments" has produced "a staggering number" of local governmental units. The Court noted that, "while special-purpose organizations abound . . ., virtually every American lives within what he and his neighbors regard as a unit of local government with general responsibility and power for local affairs." The Midland County Commissioners Court, the body whose composition was challenged in Avery, was found to possess a broad range of powers that made it "representative of most of the general governing bodies of American cities, counties, towns, and villages," and the Court was at pains to limit its holding to such general bodies. 390 U. S., at 482-485. Today the Court discards that limitation, stating that "there is no discernible, valid reason why constitutional distinctions should be drawn on the basis of the purpose of the election." Ante, at 54-55. I believe, to the contrary, that the need to preserve flexibility in the design of local 50 HARLAN, J., dissenting governmental units that serve specialized functions and that must meet particular local conditions, furnishes a powerful reason to refuse to extend the Avery ruling beyond its original limits. If local units having general governmental powers are to be considered, like state legislatures, as having a substantial identity of function that justifies imposing on them a uniformity of elective structure, it is clear that specialized local entities are characterized by precisely the opposite of such identity. From irrigation districts to air pollution control agencies to school districts, such units vary in the magnitude of their impact upon various constituencies and in the manner in which the benefits and burdens of their operations interact with other elements of the local political and economic picture. Today's ruling will forbid these agencies from adopting electoral mechanisms that take these variations into account. In my opinion, this ruling imposes an arbitrary limitation on the ways in which local agencies may be constituted. The Court concedes that the States may use means other than apportionment "to insure that legitimate political goals of representation are achieved." For example, officials elected at large may be required to be residents of particular areas that do not contain equal numbers of people, Dusch v. Davis, 387 U. S. 112 (1967); the right to vote may be denied outright to persons whose interest in the function performed by the agency is nonexistent or slight, cf. Kramer v. Union Free School District, 395 U. S. 621 (1969); Cipriano v. City of Houma, 395 U. S. 701 (1969); or the State may in many instances abandon the elective process altogether and allow members of an official body to be appointed, without any regard for the equal-population principle, Sailors v. Board of Education, 387 U. S. 105 (1967). Since the Court recognizes the States' need for flexibility in structuring local units, I am unable to see any basis for its selectively |