Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-465_i425.pdf
Page Number: 12.0

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

9 

Opinion of the Court 

sanctions?  See  id.,  at  230.    Or  would  doing  so  violate  an
elector’s “constitutional freedom” to “vote as he may choose”
in the Electoral College?  Ibid.  Today, we take up that ques-
tion.  We uphold Washington’s penalty-backed pledge law 
for  reasons  much  like  those  given  in  Ray.  The  Constitu-
tion’s text and the Nation’s history both support allowing a
State  to  enforce  an  elector’s  pledge  to  support  his  party’s
nominee—and the state voters’ choice—for President. 

A 
Article II, §1’s appointments power gives the States far-
reaching authority over presidential electors, absent some
other  constitutional  constraint.4  As  noted  earlier,  each 
State may appoint electors “in such Manner as the Legisla-
ture thereof may direct.”  Art. II, §1, cl. 2; see supra, at 2. 
This  Court  has  described  that  clause  as  “conveying  the 
broadest  power  of  determination”  over  who  becomes  an 
elector.  McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U. S. 1, 27 (1892).5  And 
the  power  to  appoint  an  elector  (in  any  manner)  includes
power  to  condition  his  appointment—that  is,  to  say  what 
the elector must do for the appointment to take effect.   A 
State can require, for example, that an elector live in the
State or qualify as a regular voter during the relevant time 
period.  Or more substantively, a State can insist (as Ray
allowed) that the elector pledge to cast his Electoral College 

—————— 

4 Checks on a State’s power to appoint electors, or to impose conditions 
on an appointment, can theoretically come from anywhere in the Consti-
tution.  A State, for example, cannot select its electors in a way that vio-
lates the Equal Protection Clause.  And if a State adopts a condition on 
its appointments that effectively imposes new requirements on presiden-
tial candidates, the condition may conflict with the Presidential Qualifi-
cations Clause, see Art. II, §1, cl. 5. 

5 See also U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U. S. 779, 805 (1995)
(describing  Article  II,  §1  as  an  “express  delegation[ ]  of  power  to  the
States”); but see post, at 2 (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment) (contin-
uing to press the view, taken in the Thornton dissent, that Article II, §1
grants the States no power at all).