Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-465_i425.pdf
Page Number: 16.0

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

13 

Opinion of the Court 

Framers did not reduce their thoughts about electors’ dis-
cretion to the printed page.  All that they put down about
the electors was what we have said: that the States would 
appoint them, and that they would meet and cast ballots to
send to the Capitol.  Those sparse instructions took no po-
sition on how independent from—or how faithful to—party 
and popular preferences the electors’ votes should be.  On 
that score,  the Constitution left much to the future.   And 
the  future  did  not  take  long  in  coming.    Almost  immedi-
ately,  presidential  electors  became  trusty  transmitters  of 
other people’s decisions. 

B 
“Long settled and established practice” may have “great
weight  in  a  proper  interpretation  of  constitutional  provi-
sions.”  The Pocket Veto Case, 279 U. S. 655, 689 (1929).  As 
James  Madison  wrote,  “a  regular  course  of  practice”  can
“liquidate & settle the meaning of ” disputed or indetermi-
nate “terms & phrases.”  Letter to S. Roane (Sept. 2, 1819),
in 8 Writings of James Madison 450 (G. Hunt ed. 1908); see 
The Federalist No. 37, at 225.  The Electors make an appeal
to that kind of practice in asserting their right to independ-
ence.  But “our whole experience as a Nation” points in the
opposite direction.  NLRB v. Noel Canning, 573 U. S. 513, 
557  (2014)  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted).    Electors 
have only rarely exercised discretion in casting their ballots 
for President.  From the first, States sent them to the Elec-
toral College—as today Washington does—to vote for pre-
selected candidates, rather than to use their own judgment.
And electors (or at any rate, almost all of them) rapidly set-
tled into that non-discretionary role.  See Ray, 343 U. S., at 
228–229. 

Begin at the beginning—with the Nation’s first contested 
election in 1796.  Would-be electors declared themselves for 
one or the other party’s presidential candidate.  (Recall that