To prefer, to choose, to determine in favor of.--Webster. This sense of the word is not noticed by Johnson or Todd. It is not common with us. President Polk used it thus:
In pursuance of the joint resolution of Congress, "for annexing Texas to the United States," my predecessor, on the third day of March, 1845, elected to submit the first and second sections of that resolution to the Republic of Texas, as an overture, on the part of the United States, for her admission as a State into our Union. This election I approved.--Message to Congress, Dec. 1, 1845.