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 procedures gave electors two votes for President, rather than one apiece for President and Vice President. Without the capacity 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 intentionally 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 practice that had arisen in the Nation’s first elections. An elector 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 electors,” 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