10 CHIAFALO v. WASHINGTON Opinion of the Court ballot for his party’s presidential nominee, thus tracking the State’s popular vote. See Ray, 343 U. S., at 227 (Apledge requirement “is an exercise of the state’s right to ap-point electors in such manner” as it chooses). Or—so longas nothing else in the Constitution poses an obstacle—aState can add, as Washington did, an associated conditionof appointment: It can demand that the elector actually live up to his pledge, on pain of penalty. Which is to say thatthe State’s appointment power, barring some outside con-straint, enables the enforcement of a pledge like Washing-ton’s.6 And nothing in the Constitution expressly prohibitsStates from taking away presidential electors’ voting dis-cretion as Washington does. The Constitution is barebones about electors. Article II includes only the instruction toeach State to appoint, in whatever way it likes, as manyelectors as it has Senators and Representatives (except thatthe State may not appoint members of the Federal Govern-ment). The Twelfth Amendment then tells electors to meet in their States, to vote for President and Vice President sep-arately, and to transmit lists of all their votes to the Presi-dent of the United States Senate for counting. Appoint-ments and procedures and . . . that is all. See id., at 225. The Framers could have done it differently; other consti-tutional drafters of their time did. In the founding era, two —————— 6The concurring opinion would have us make fine distinctions amongstate laws punishing faithless voting—treating some as conditions of ap-pointment and others not, depending on small semantic differences. See post, at 6–9 (distinguishing, for example, between Oklahoma’s law finingan elector for violating his oath (to vote for his party’s candidate) and Washington’s law fining an elector for not voting for his party’s candidate (whom he took an oath to support)). The Electors themselves raised no such argument, and they were right not to do so. No matter the precise phrasing, a law penalizing faithless voting (like a law merely barringthat practice) is an exercise of the State’s power to impose conditions onthe appointment of electors. See Ray v. Blair, 343 U. S. 154, 227 (1952). 11 Cite as: 591 U. S. ____ (2020) Opinion of the Court States—Maryland and Kentucky—used electoral bodies se-lected by voters to choose state senators (and in Kentucky’s case, the Governor too). The Constitutions of both States, Maryland’s drafted just before and Kentucky’s just after the U. S. Constitution, incorporated language that would havemade this case look quite different. Both state Constitu-tions required all electors to take an oath “to elect withoutfavour, affection, partiality, or prejudice, such persons forSenators, as they, in their judgment and conscience, believe best qualified for the office.” Md. Declaration of Rights,Art. XVIII (1776); see Ky. Const., Art. I, §14 (1792) (using identical language except adding “[and] for Governor”). The emphasis on independent “judgment and conscience” called for the exercise of elector discretion. But although theFramers knew of Maryland’s Constitution, no language of that kind made it into the document they drafted. See 1 Farrand 218, 289 (showing that Madison and Hamilton re-ferred to the Maryland system at the Convention). The Electors argue that three simple words stand in formore explicit language about discretion. Article II, §1 firstnames the members of the Electoral College: “electors.” The Twelfth Amendment then says that electors shall “vote”and that they shall do so by “ballot.” The “plain meaning” of those terms, the Electors say, requires electors to have“freedom of choice.” Brief for Petitioners 29, 31. If the States could control their votes, “the electors would not be ‘Electors,’ and their ‘vote by Ballot’ would not be a ‘vote.’” Id., at 31. But those words need not always connote independent choice. Suppose a person always votes in the way his spouse, or pastor, or union tells him to. We might question his judgment, but we would have no problem saying that he“votes” or fills in a “ballot.” In those cases, the choice is in someone else’s hands, but the words still apply because they can signify a mechanical act. Or similarly, suppose in a sys-12 CHIAFALO v. WASHINGTON Opinion of the Court tem allowing proxy voting (a common practice in the found-ing era), the proxy acts on clear instructions from the prin-cipal, with no freedom of choice. Still, we might well say that he cast a “ballot” or “voted,” though the preference reg-istered was not his own. For that matter, some elections give the voter no real choice because there is only one nameon a ballot (consider an old Soviet election, or even a down-ballot race in this country). Yet if the person in the votingbooth goes through the motions, we consider him to havevoted. The point of all these examples is to show that alt-hough voting and discretion are usually combined, voting isstill voting when discretion departs. Maybe most telling, switch from hypotheticals to the members of the Electoral College. For centuries now, as we’ll later show, almost all have considered themselves bound to vote for their party’s (and the state voters’) preference. See infra, at 13–17. Yet there is no better description for what they do in the Elec-toral College than “vote” by “ballot.” And all these yearslater, everyone still calls them “electors”—and not wrongly, because even though they vote without discretion, they do indeed elect a President. The Electors and their amici object that the Framers us-ing those words expected the Electors’ votes to reflect theirown judgments. See Brief for Petitioners 18–19; Brief for Independence Institute as Amicus Curiae 11–15. Hamilton praised the Constitution for entrusting the Presidency to“men most capable of analyzing the qualities” needed for the office, who would make their choices “under circum-stances favorable to deliberation.” The Federalist No. 68, p. 410 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961). So too, John Jay predicted that the Electoral College would “be composed of the most enlightened and respectable citizens,” whose choices would reflect “discretion and discernment.” Id., No. 64, at 389. But even assuming other Framers shared that outlook, it would not be enough. Whether by choice or accident, the 13 Cite as: 591 U. S. ____ (2020) Opinion of the Court Framers did not reduce their thoughts about electors’ dis-cretion to the printed page. All that they put down aboutthe electors was what we have said: that the States would appoint them, and that they would meet and cast ballots tosend 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 “greatweight 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 appealto that kind of practice in asserting their right to independ-ence. But “our whole experience as a Nation” points in theopposite 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 14 CHIAFALO v. WASHINGTON Opinion of the Court in this election Adams led the Federalists against Jeffer-son’s Republicans. See supra, at 3.) In some States, legis-latures chose the electors; in others, ordinary voters did. But in either case, the elector’s declaration of support for acandidate—essentially a pledge—was what mattered. Or said differently, the selectors of an elector knew just what they were getting—not someone who would deliberate in good Hamiltonian fashion, but someone who would vote for their party’s candidate. “[T]he presidential electors,” one historian writes, “were understood to be instruments for ex-pressing the will of those who selected them, not independ-ent agents authorized to exercise their own judgment.”Whittington, Originalism, Constitutional Construction, and the Problem of Faithless Electors, 59 Ariz. L. Rev. 903, 911 (2017). And when the time came to vote in the Electoral College, all but one elector did what everyone expected, faithfully representing their selectors’ choice of presidential candidate.7 The Twelfth Amendment embraced this new reality—both acknowledging and facilitating the Electoral College’semergence as a mechanism not for deliberation but for party-line voting. Remember that the Amendment grewout of a pair of fiascos—the election of two then-bitter rivals —————— 7The reaction to even that single elector goes to prove the point that the system was non-discretionary. In the 1796 election, Pennsylvania held a statewide vote for electors under a winner-take-all rule (as all but two States have today). The people voted narrowly for the slate of elec-tors supporting Jefferson. But Federalist chicanery led to the Governor’sinclusion of two Federalist electors in the State’s delegation to the Elec-toral College. One of them, Samuel Miles, agreed to cast his vote forJefferson, in line with the winner-take-all expectation on which the race had been run. If he thought other Federalists would forgive him for act-ing with honor, he was wrong. An irate voter reacted: “[W]hen I voted for the [Federalist] ticket, I voted for John Adams. . . . What! do I chuse Samuel Miles to determine for me whether John Adams or Thomas Jef-ferson is the fittest man for President of the United States? No—I chuse him to act, not to think.” See Gazette of the United States, Dec. 15, 1796, p. 3, col. 1 (emphasis in original). 15 Cite as: 591 U. S. ____ (2020) 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 proce-dures gave electors two votes for President, rather than oneapiece for President and Vice President. Without the ca-pacity to vote a party ticket for the two offices, the electorshad foundered, and could do so again. If the predominantparty’s electors used both their votes on their party’s twocandidates, they would create a tie (see 1800). If they in-tentionally cast fewer votes for the intended vice president, they risked the opposite party’s presidential candidatesneaking 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 prac-tice that had arisen in the Nation’s first elections. An elec-tor 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 “votethe regular party ticket” and thereby “carry out the desiresof 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 elec-tors,” he continued, “but to register [their] votes, which arealready pledged.” Id., at 321–322. Indeed, any “exercise ofan independent judgment would be treated[ ] as a politicalusurpation, dishonourable to the individual, and a fraud upon his constituents.” Id., at 322. Similarly, William 16 CHIAFALO v. WASHINGTON Opinion of the Court Rawle explained how the Electoral College functioned: “[T]he electors do not assemble in their several states for a free exercise of their own judgments, but for the purpose of electing” the nominee of “the predominant political partywhich has chosen those electors.” A View of the Constitu-tion of the United States of America 57 (2d ed. 1829). Look-ing back at the close of the century, this Court had no doubt that Story’s and Rawle’s descriptions were right. The elec-tors, the Court noted, were chosen “simply to register the will of the appointing power in respect of a particular can-didate.” McPherson, 146 U. S., at 36. State election laws evolved to reinforce that development,ensuring that a State’s electors would vote the same way as its citizens. As noted earlier, state legislatures earlydropped out of the picture; by the mid-1800s, ordinary vot-ers chose electors. See supra, at 4. Except that increas-ingly, they did not do so directly. States listed only presi-dential candidates on the ballot, on the understanding thatelectors would do no more than vote for the winner. Usu-ally, the State could ensure that result by appointing elec-tors chosen by the winner’s party. But to remove any doubt,States began in the early 1900s to enact statutes requiring electors to pledge that they would squelch any urge to break ranks with voters. See supra, at 5. Washington’s law, pe-nalizing a pledge’s breach, is only another in the same vein. It reflects a tradition more than two centuries old. In that practice, electors are not free agents; they are to vote for the candidate whom the State’s voters have chosen. The history going the opposite way is one of anomaliesonly. The Electors stress that since the founding, electorshave cast some 180 faithless votes for either President or Vice President. See Brief for Petitioners 7. But that is 180 out of over 23,000. See Brief for Republican National Com-mittee as Amicus Curiae 19. And more than a third of the faithless votes come from 1872, when the Democratic Party’s nominee (Horace Greeley) died just after Election 17 Cite as: 591 U. S. ____ (2020) Opinion of the Court Day.8 Putting those aside, faithless votes represent justone-half of one percent of the total. Still, the Electors coun-ter, Congress has counted all those votes. See Brief for Pe-titioners 46. But because faithless votes have never come close to affecting an outcome, only one has ever been chal-lenged. True enough, that one was counted. But the Elec-tors cannot rest a claim of historical tradition on one counted vote in over 200 years. And anyway, the State ap-pointing that elector had no law requiring a pledge or oth-erwise barring his use of discretion. Congress’s deferenceto a state decision to tolerate a faithless vote is no ground for rejecting a state decision to penalize one. III The Electors’ constitutional claim has neither text nor history on its side. Article II and the Twelfth Amendment give States broad power over electors, and give electorsthemselves no rights. Early in our history, States decidedto tie electors to the presidential choices of others, whetherlegislatures or citizens. Except that legislatures no longer play a role, that practice has continued for more than 200 years. Among the devices States have long used to achievetheir object are pledge laws, designed to impress on electors their role as agents of others. A State follows in the same tradition if, like Washington, it chooses to sanction an elec-tor for breaching his promise. Then too, the State instructs —————— 8The Electors contend that elector discretion is needed to deal with the possibility that a future presidential candidate will die between Election Day and the Electoral College vote. See Reply Brief 20–22. We do not dismiss how much turmoil such an event could cause. In recognition of that fact, some States have drafted their pledge laws to give electors vot-ing discretion when their candidate has died. See, e.g., Cal. Elec. Code Ann. §6906; Ind. Code §3–10–4–1.7. And we suspect that in such a case, States without a specific provision would also release electors from their pledge. Still, we note that because the situation is not before us, nothingin this opinion should be taken to permit the States to bind electors to adeceased candidate. 18 CHIAFALO v. WASHINGTON Opinion of the Court its electors that they have no ground for reversing the vote of millions of its citizens. That direction accords with the Constitution—as well as with the trust of a Nation that here, We the People rule. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Washington is Affirmed.