The framers did anticipate one potential flaw with their electoral mechanism, though: Since each state would likely consider it to be to their advantage for the nation’s chief executive to be a fellow statesman, electors would be tempted to vote only for candidates from their home states. And since every elector would vote for two candidates, and states with larger populations had more representatives in Congress and therefore got to appoint more electors, this process created the possibility that the presidency would be continually held by candidates hailing from a few of the largest states. (Many delegates believed that rarely would any presidential candidate receive a majority of electoral votes, so every four years the House of Representatives would essentially be choosing a president from among the five candidates “nominated” by the three or four states with the most electoral votes.) Therefore, Article II (as well as the Twelfth Amendment, which modified it) specified that electors must “vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves,” a requirement that guaranteed at least half of each state’s electoral votes would be cast for candidates from other states.
This requirement is still in effect today, but confusion arises when people misunderstand it to govern the actions of candidates rather than electors. Nothing in the constitution bars presidential and vice-presidential candidates from the same state from running, being elected, or holding office together; it only bars the electors from their home state from voting for both of them.
For example, suppose the Republican party nominated for their national ticket a pair of candidates who both hailed from the state of Nevada. If the Republican ticket received the most popular votes in that state in the general election, Nevada’s electors could not cast ballots for both candidates — for at least one of the two offices (presumably vice-president), each of Nevada’s electors would have to vote for someone off the ticket who was not a resident of Nevada. Republican electors in every state other than Nevada, however, would be free to vote for both candidates.
Since Nevada has a relatively small number of electoral votes (5), and none of the electors in other states would be subject to the same voting limitation as Nevada’s electors, it’s unlikely this scenario would affect the outcome of a general election. But if the election were very close, or if both candidates came from a state with a large number of electoral votes (such as California or New York), the same-state electoral voting restriction could result in the aforementioned possibility of an election’s producing a president and a vice-president from different parties, so U.S. political parties typically avoid nominating tickets featuring candidates from the same state (even though they are not constitutionally required to do so).
This restriction was an issue in the 2000 presidential election. Dick Cheney, who grew up in Wyoming and represented that state in Congress from 1979-89, had bought a home and registered to vote in Texas in 1995, and after that date he also held a Texas driver’s license, paid Texas taxes, and claimed Texas’ homestead tax deduction. When the Republican presidential nominee, Texas governor George W. Bush (obviously a Texas resident himself), selected Cheney as his vice-presidential running mate in 2000, this circumstance raised the issue of whether Texas’ electors would be allowed to cast ballots for both candidates. Cheney hastily switched his voter registration and driver’s license back to Wyoming, and when three Texas voters filed a lawsuit challenging his claim of non-Texas residency, Governor Bush’s legal team successfully argued in federal court that those factors (among others) were sufficient to establish Cheney as a Wyoming resident.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/favorite-sons/
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