In the Wiley v. Sinkler case of 1900, the U.S Supreme Court ruled on a matter concerning voting rights and representation. The plaintiff, Wiley, was an African American man from South Carolina who claimed that his right to vote had been violated due to gerrymandering - a practice where electoral district boundaries are manipulated for political advantage. He argued that this resulted in unequal representation which infringed upon his Fourteenth Amendment rights (equal protection under law). The court held that while every citizen has a constitutional right to vote without discrimination or denial by any state, it does not guarantee equal representation in Congress for each voter or group of voters within the state. Therefore, even though gerrymandering may result in unequal representation among different districts within a state; as long as citizens have an equal opportunity to participate in elections and their votes are counted equally with others', there is no violation of constitutional rights.

In the dissenting opinion for Wiley v. Sinkler, Justice Harlan argued that the majority's interpretation of Section 5508 was too broad and not in line with its original intent. He believed that this section only applied to federal elections or state elections where a federal question was involved. According to him, it did not apply to all state elections as the majority suggested because states have their own sovereignty and should be able to regulate their own electoral processes without interference from Congress unless there is a clear violation of constitutional rights. Furthermore, he contended that if Congress had intended such an expansive interpretation of Section 5508, they would have made it explicit in the language of the statute itself rather than leaving it up for judicial interpretation.