Jacob Sorett – Article 1 Section 4 The Elections Clause

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The Elections Clause was made to solely manage the election of the House and Senate, not the president. According to, Micheal T. Morley and Franita Tolson, it was written to ensure that all states hold elections for Congress and that their procedures for said elections are fair.

 The main purpose of the text is to balance the power of the state and of Congress in voting for representatives. More specifically, the clause is known to establish that each state can set its own conditions in which voting takes place, but that these conditions can be lawfully changed by Congress. 

Even with a common interpretation of the election clause, there are several divergent perspectives about its contents. An example of the above would be how some states more widely distribute power and create “independent redistricting commissions”. This was done in order to prevent the division of voters and keep current members of Congress in their offices. This viewpoint includes the idea of “independent redistricting commissions” being ideal for the Elections Clause for it displays that there is a fairer way to hold elections than what the clause outlines. An example specifically in the court would be Cook v. Gralike. Don Gralike came before the court and argued for the Congressional Term Limit Amendment. It permitted for warnings to be written next to the names of previously elected representatives who opposed Congressional term limits.

However, the supreme court declared that the Elections Clause prevents the state from doing so due to how the amendment is clearly biased towards candidates that support term limits. This serves as a perfect example of different interpretations of the election clause. From the perspective of the court, the Elections Clause should protect members of Congress by preventing the state from going against officials opposing term limits. From the perspective of Don Gralike, the clause allows for the state to still express the manner in which the process is done, and this manner he believes should include warnings next to candidates’ names.

Another case where the Elections Clause was debated was U.S. Term Limits, Inc, v. Thornton. The side of Thorton argued that states should be able to neglect to print the names of candidates who had served in Congress for three terms. Again the supreme court prevented this and declared that the Elections Clause requires all candidates to be displayed on ballots. The supreme court had yet again ruled in favor of Congress and its present officers, once again displaying the court’s interpretation of the clause. 

I find the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the election clause to be more reasonable and persuasive. The Elections Clause’s ultimate goal is to give Congress the power to keep the state in check, preventing unfair and corrupt voting procedures. With more lenient interpretations this is not the case, and this includes arguments such as the one in Cook v. Gralike. States shouldn’t be allowed to make such changes that are clearly in favor of specific candidates, and I think that the view of the supreme court entails this point. If I were to amend this clause, I would allow Congress to alter where the votes are made, as the Elections Clause currently bands this. The state could manage to make change the voting turnout by setting the location of the ballots to specific places. For example, if the state of New York changed all of its ballot locations to extremely far upstate, that would not reflect the vast majority of New York’s votes. This is because most residents don’t live upstate. I think Congress should be able to regulate this to ensure the right amount of voter turnout. 

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