10 WATSON v. REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE Opinion of the Court identify is not dispositive; they overread our precedent; and policy cannot override the words Congress chose. When it comes to the ordinary usage of the word “election,” there is no dispute. An “election” is “[t]he act of choosing a person to fill an office.” Brief for Respondent Libertarian Party of Mississippi 21 (internal quotation marks omitted); accord, post, at 3 (“agree[ing]” that an election is “the expression of the electorate’s choice” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Brief for Republican Respondents 17– 18 (similar).2 Still, both the dissent and plaintiffs argue that choice requires more than ballot casting. According to the dissent, ballot receipt is necessary because it renders the electorate’s choice “authoritative.” Post, at 1–2, 4. But the dissent never says what “authoritative” means, much less why ballot receipt carries this transformative power. Plaintiffs, for their part, suggest that ballot receipt is significant because it marks the point at which we can say “who won.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 72. But plaintiffs fail to explain why the electorate’s choice is not made until we “know” “who won.” Ibid. And in any event, we do not know who won when all ballots are received. Many other acts must occur first: Voter qualifications must be adjudicated, ballots authenticated, and votes counted. See Brief for Local Election Officials et al. as Amici Curiae 5–12. Plaintiffs have no statutory basis for making ballot receipt the magic moment. Lacking a statutory foothold, plaintiffs (tracked closely by the dissent) pivot quickly to their primary argument: —————— 2 Although the dissent agrees that the word “election” means “choice,” it also selectively quotes from two legal dictionaries to suggest that “election” was understood to encompass ballot receipt. See post, at 5. But those dictionaries define “election” the same way we do—as “[c]hoice,” 1 J. Bouvier, Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia 979 (8th ed. 1914) (Bouvier), or “[a] choosing,” W. Anderson, Dictionary of Law 394 (1889) (Anderson). The separate language quoted by the dissent—“receiving the ballots,” Bouvier 979, and “taking the votes,” Anderson 394—describes the election practices of particular States.