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Page Number: 18.0

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

15 

Opinion of the Court 

as President and Vice President, and the tie vote that threw 
the next election into the House.  See supra, at 3.  Both had 
occurred  because  the  Constitution’s  original  voting  proce-
dures gave electors two votes for President, rather than one
apiece  for  President  and  Vice  President.    Without  the  ca-
pacity to vote a party ticket for the two offices, the electors
had foundered, and could do so again.  If the predominant
party’s  electors  used  both  their  votes  on  their  party’s  two
candidates, they would create a tie (see 1800).  If they in-
tentionally cast fewer votes for the intended vice president, 
they  risked  the  opposite  party’s  presidential  candidate
sneaking into the second position (see 1796).  By allowing 
the  electors  to  vote  separately  for  the  two  offices,  the 
Twelfth  Amendment  made  party-line  voting  safe.  The 
Amendment thus advanced, rather than resisted, the prac-
tice that had arisen in the Nation’s first elections.  An elec-
tor would promise to legislators or citizens to vote for their 
party’s presidential and vice presidential candidates—and 
then follow through on that commitment.  Or as the Court 
wrote in Ray, the new procedure allowed an elector to “vote
the regular party ticket” and thereby “carry out the desires
of  the  people”  who  had  sent  him  to  the  Electoral  College. 
Ray, 343 U. S., at 224, n. 11.  No independent electors need 
apply.

Courts  and  commentators  throughout  the  19th  century 
recognized  the electors as merely  acting on other people’s 
preferences.  Justice Story wrote that “the electors are now 
chosen  wholly  with  reference  to  particular  candidates,” 
having either “silently” or “publicly pledge[d]” how they will 
vote.  3  Commentaries  on  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States §1457, p. 321 (1833).  “[N]othing is left to the elec-
tors,” he continued, “but to register [their] votes, which are
already pledged.”  Id., at 321–322.  Indeed, any “exercise of
an independent judgment would be treated[ ] as a political
usurpation,  dishonourable  to  the  individual,  and  a  fraud 
upon  his  constituents.”    Id.,  at  322.    Similarly,  William