In the case of Wells v. Rockefeller, Governor of New York et al., 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court was tasked with determining whether or not a state's apportionment plan for congressional districts violated the Equal Protection Clause due to population variances among districts. The appellants argued that New York State's redistricting plan resulted in unequal representation because it allowed for up to 15% deviation from perfect numerical equality among its districts' populations. However, the court ruled against this argument and upheld New York’s reapportionment scheme as constitutional by a vote of five justices to four. The majority opinion held that while absolute population equality is an ideal goal when creating legislative boundaries, minor deviations are permissible if they serve legitimate state objectives such as maintaining political subdivisions or providing more effective representation for rural areas. In contrast, dissenting justices argued that any deviation from exact mathematical equality violates citizens’ right to equal protection under law unless justified by compelling reasons which were absent in this case.

In the dissenting opinion for Wells v. Rockefeller, Justice William O. Douglas argued that the majority's decision to uphold New York's redistricting plan was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. He contended that this clause requires states to make an honest and good faith effort to construct districts as nearly equal in population as practicable, which he believed New York had failed to do. According to him, there were significant disparities in population between different districts - some contained 50% more people than others - which resulted in unequal representation and violated citizens' rights under the Constitution. Furthermore, he criticized his colleagues for failing to provide clear guidelines on what constitutes acceptable deviation from equality when it comes to district populations.