In drafting the elections clause in 1787, the Founders at the Constitutional Convention attempted to balance their distrust of state legislatures as the source of partisan factions with their desire to maintain state control over voting qualifications. “The Legislatures of the States ought not to have the uncontrolled right of regulating the times places & manner of holding elections,” James Madison explained in a debate, according to notes taken at the time. He was concerned that partisan factions in a state might rig the electoral system to favor their own candidates. “Whenever the State Legislatures had a favorite measure to carry, they would take care so to mould their regulations as to favor the candidates they wished to succeed.”