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Page Number: 27

22 

MOORE v. HARPER 

Opinion of the Court 

of voting, protection of voters, prevention of fraud and cor-
rupt  practices,  counting  of  votes,  duties  of  inspectors  and 
canvassers,  and  making  and  publication  of  election  re-
turns.”  Smiley, 285 U. S., at 366.  In contrast, a simple up-
or-down vote suffices to ratify an amendment to the Consti-
tution.  Providing consent to the purchase of land or elect-
ing Senators involves similarly straightforward exercises of 
authority.  But  fashioning  regulations  governing  federal
elections “unquestionably calls for the exercise of lawmak-
ing authority.”  Arizona State Legislature, 576 U. S., at 808, 
n. 17.  And the exercise of such authority in the context of
the Elections Clause is subject to the ordinary constraints
on lawmaking in the state constitution.

In sum, our precedents have long rejected the view that 
legislative action under the Elections Clause is purely fed-
eral in character, governed only by restraints found in the 
Federal Constitution. 

C 
Addressing our decisions in Smiley and Hildebrant, both 
the  legislative  defendants  and  JUSTICE  THOMAS  concede 
that  at  least  some  state  constitutional  provisions  can  re-
strain a state legislature’s exercise of authority under the
Elections Clause.  But they read those cases to differentiate
between procedural and substantive constraints.  Brief for 
Petitioners 24; post, at 21–22 (opinion of THOMAS, J.).  Smi-
ley, in their view, stands for the proposition that state con-
stitutions may impose only procedural hoops through which 
legislatures must jump in crafting rules governing federal
elections.  This concededly “formalistic” approach views the 
Governor’s veto at issue in Smiley as one such procedural
restraint.  Tr. of Oral Arg. 62.  But when it comes to sub-
stantive  provisions,  their  argument  goes,  our  precedents 
have nothing to say.

This argument adopts too cramped a view of our decision
in  Smiley.    Chief  Justice  Hughes’s  opinion  for  the  Court