_Restrictions on the Electors._--In casting their votes the electors are prohibited from voting for candidates for both offices from the same state as themselves. The purpose of this provision is to prevent the electors from one state--if any state should ever become powerful enough--from choosing both the President and the Vice President from that state. This does not mean, however, that both the President and the Vice President could not be elected from the same state, since the electors of the other states are not prohibited from voting for two candidates from the same state. _Formalities and Precautions._--The Constitution requires the electors of each state to sign, certify, seal, and transmit to the president of the United States senate, a list of the votes cast for President and Vice President. The statutes also require two additional lists to be prepared, one to be sent to the president of the senate by special messenger, and the other to be deposited with the nearest United States district judge. These extra precautions are taken to prevent the loss of the state's votes through accident or otherwise. This done, the office of the Presidential elector expires and the electoral colleges cannot be again summoned to correct errors or to make a new choice in case the President elect should die before inauguration. =Counting the Electoral Vote.=--The Constitution directs that the votes transmitted to the president of the senate shall be opened in the presence of both houses of Congress and that the votes shall then be counted. The Constitution does not say who shall count the votes. Apparently the framers believed that the process of counting would never involve anything more than a simple act of addition. But in the course of time disputed returns began to be sent in, and then the process of counting came to involve the more difficult task of determining what should be counted. Thereupon the question was raised, who shall count? Was the president of the senate to count and the two houses act merely as spectators, or was the president of the senate to open the votes and the two houses do the counting? For a long time, when the disputes were not serious enough to affect the result, the president of the senate was allowed to count the vote and proclaim the result.[64] In 1865 by a joint rule Congress assumed the right to count the electoral vote, thus taking the power away from the president of the senate. [64] Thus Jefferson as president of the senate in 1801, counted the vote which elected him President of the United States and declared himself duly elected. So did Adams in 1797. Suppose there had been a serious dispute in either of these cases, could the president of the senate have counted for himself the votes in dispute?