Cite as: 514 U. S. 779 (1995)
Thomas, J., dissenting
undue influence"). Again, however, the desire to coordinate state election procedures did not require giving Congress power over qualifications laws.
The structure of the Constitution also undermines the majority's suggestion that it would have been bizarre for the Framers to give Congress supervisory authority over state time, place, and manner regulations but not over state qualifications laws. Although the Constitution does set forth a few nationwide disqualifications for the office of Presidential elector, see Art. II, § 1, cl. 2 ("no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector"), no one contends that these disqualifications implicitly prohibit the States from adding any other eligibility requirements; instead, Article II leaves the States free to establish qualifications for their delegates to the electoral college. See supra, at 861-862. Nothing in the Constitution, moreover, gives Congress any say over the additional eligibility requirements that the people of the States or their state legislatures may choose to set. Yet under Article II, "[t]he Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors . . . ." Art. II, § 1, cl. 4.
The majority thus creates an unwarranted divergence between Article I's provisions for the selection of Members of Congress and Article II's provisions for the selection of members of the electoral college. Properly understood, the treatment of congressional elections in Article I parallels the treatment of Presidential elections in Article II. Under Article I as under Article II, the States and the people of the States do enjoy the reserved power to establish substantive eligibility requirements for candidates, and Congress has no power to override these requirements. But just as Article II authorizes Congress to prescribe when the States must select their Presidential electors, so Article I gives Congress the ultimate authority over the times, places, and manner of holding congressional elections.
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