Opinion of the Court
ing the “places” and “manner” of holding elections for federal office. An 1810 amendment to the Maryland Constitution likewise embodied regulations falling within the scope of the Elections and Electors Clauses. Article XIV provided that every qualified citizen “shall vote, by ballot, … for electors of the President and Vice-President of the United States, [and] for Representatives of this State in the Congress of the United States.” If the Elections Clause had vested exclusive authority in state legislatures, unchecked by state courts enforcing provisions of state constitutions, these clauses would have been unenforceable from the start.
Besides the two specific provisions in Maryland and Delaware, multiple state constitutions at the time of the founding regulated federal elections by requiring that “[a]ll elections shall be by ballot.” Ga. Const., Art. IV, §2 (1789); see also, e.g., Pa. Const., Art. III, §2 (1790); Ky. Const., Art. III, cl. 2 (1792); Tenn. Const., Art. III, §3 (1796); Ohio Const., Art. IV, §2 (1803); La. Const., Art. VI, §13 (1812). These provisions directed the “manner” of federal elections within the meaning of the Elections Clause, as Madison himself explained at the Constitutional Convention. See 2 Farrand 240 (“Whether the electors should vote by ballot or vivâ voce” falls within the “great latitude” of “regulating the times places & manner of holding elections”).
The legislative defendants discount this evidence. They argue that those “by ballot” provisions spoke only “to the offices that were created by” state constitutions, and not to the federal offices to which the Elections Clause applies. Tr. of Oral Arg. 18. We find no textual hook for that strained reading. “All” meant then what it means now.
In addition, the Framers did not write the Elections Clause on a blank slate—they instead borrowed from the Articles of Confederation, which provided that “delegates shall be annually appointed in such manner as the legislature of each state shall direct.” Art. V. The two provisions
