531US1
104
Unit: $$U9
[05-01-02 10:02:37] PAGES PGT: OPIN
BUSH v. GORE
Per Curiam
This case has shown that punchcard balloting machines
can produce an unfortunate number of ballots which are not
punched in a clean, complete way by the voter. After the
current counting, it is likely legislative bodies nationwide
will examine ways to improve the mechanisms and machinery for voting.
B
The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right
to vote for electors for the President of the United States
unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide
election as the means to implement its power to appoint
members of the electoral college. U. S. Const., Art. II, § 1.
This is the source for the statement in McPherson v.
Blacker, 146 U. S. 1, 35 (1892), that the state legislature’s
power to select the manner for appointing electors is plenary; it may, if it so chooses, select the electors itself, which
indeed was the manner used by state legislatures in several
States for many years after the framing of our Constitution.
Id., at 28–33. History has now favored the voter, and in
each of the several States the citizens themselves vote for
Presidential electors. When the state legislature vests the
right to vote for President in its people, the right to vote
as the legislature has prescribed is fundamental; and one
source of its fundamental nature lies in the equal weight
accorded to each vote and the equal dignity owed to each
voter. The State, of course, after granting the franchise in
the special context of Article II, can take back the power
to appoint electors. See id., at 35 (“ ‘[T]here is no doubt of
the right of the legislature to resume the power at any time,
for it can neither be taken away nor abdicated’ ”) (quoting
S. Rep. No. 395, 43d Cong., 1st Sess., 9 (1874)).
The right to vote is protected in more than the initial allocation of the franchise. Equal protection applies as well to
the manner of its exercise. Having once granted the right
to vote on equal terms, the State may not, by later arbitrary
and disparate treatment, value one person’s vote over that