In Chiafalo v. Washington, decided in 2020, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that states may enforce presidential elector pledges through penalties such as fines or removal from office.1Supreme Court of the United States. Chiafalo v. Washington Writing for eight justices, Justice Kagan concluded that an elector is an agent of the state’s voters, not an independent constitutional officer entitled to vote his or her own conscience. The decision resolved a question the Court had left open for 68 years and gave every state a green light to bind its electors to the popular vote winner.
The 2016 Faithless Votes That Produced the Case
The case came out of an organized effort during the 2016 election. After Donald Trump won enough states to reach an Electoral College majority, a group calling itself the “Hamilton Electors” tried to convince colleagues in both parties to deny Trump 270 electoral votes and throw the election to the House of Representatives. The effort was led by Michael Baca in Colorado and Bret Chiafalo in Washington.
Three Washington electors pledged to Hillary Clinton — Peter Chiafalo, Levi Guerra, and Esther John — instead cast their ballots for Colin Powell.2Justia Law. Chiafalo v. Washington, 591 U.S. ___ (2020) Washington fined each of them $1,000 under its faithless elector statute. Across Washington, Texas, and Hawaii, seven electors nationwide voted for someone other than their party’s nominee that year.3National Archives. 2016 Electoral College Results The defections did not change the outcome, but they sent the enforcement question to the Court.
The groundwork was already partly laid. In Ray v. Blair (1952), the Court had upheld a party’s power to require electors to pledge their support for its nominee.4Justia Law. Ray v. Blair, 343 U.S. 214 (1952) But Ray did not answer whether a state could actually punish an elector who broke that pledge. Chiafalo is where that gap finally closed.
The Court’s Reasoning Under Article II
Justice Kagan anchored the majority opinion in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, which lets each state legislature appoint electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.”5Constitution Annotated. U.S. Constitution Article II Section 1 The Court read that phrase as the “broadest power of determination” over electors, reaching not only who is appointed but the conditions attached to the appointment.
The chain of reasoning is straightforward. A state may choose electors however it wants. It may therefore require a pledge as a condition of the appointment, which Ray v. Blair had already confirmed. If the pledge is a legitimate condition, then enforcing it through a fine or removal is the natural next step, so long as nothing else in the Constitution forbids it.1Supreme Court of the United States. Chiafalo v. Washington Under this view, the elector’s role is a creation of state law rather than an office carrying its own inherent right to independent judgment.
Why the Twelfth Amendment Argument Failed
The electors’ main counter-argument came from the Twelfth Amendment, which says electors “shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot” for president and vice president.6Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twelfth Amendment To vote, they argued, is to choose, and a choice compelled by law is no choice at all.
The Court disagreed. Kagan treated the Twelfth Amendment as procedure: it tells electors when to meet, how to ballot, and where to send the results. It does not say an elector must exercise personal discretion. The majority then pointed to more than two centuries in which electors have functioned as proxies for their state’s voters rather than as deliberative decision-makers.1Supreme Court of the United States. Chiafalo v. Washington Where the constitutional text is ambiguous, that kind of longstanding practice carries weight, and the practice pointed strongly toward electors as rubber stamps.
Justice Thomas’s Concurrence
Justice Thomas agreed with the outcome but rejected the majority’s route. In his view, the power to appoint someone does not automatically include the power to control every decision that person makes after taking office.1Supreme Court of the United States. Chiafalo v. Washington
Thomas got to the same result through the Tenth Amendment. The Constitution says nothing about whether states can bind electors after appointment. Because that silence leaves the question to the states or the people, the authority remains with the states by default. Justice Gorsuch joined Part II of Thomas’s opinion, endorsing both the majority’s reasoning and the Tenth Amendment analysis.
The Companion Case: Colorado v. Baca
The Court decided Colorado Department of State v. Baca the same day. The facts paralleled Chiafalo, but Colorado’s response had gone further than a fine. The state canceled Michael Baca’s vote for John Kasich, removed him from office, and replaced him with an alternate who then voted for Hillary Clinton, Colorado’s popular vote winner. The Tenth Circuit had held that removal unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court reversed in a brief per curiam opinion citing Chiafalo.7Congressional Research Service. Supreme Court Clarifies Rules for Electoral College – States May Restrict Faithless Electors The effect was to bless both leading enforcement models: Washington’s approach of letting the rogue vote stand and fining the elector, and Colorado’s approach of throwing out the vote and installing a replacement.
What States Can Do to Enforce a Pledge
Washington’s law shows what an enforcement scheme can look like in practice. An elector who votes for someone other than the party’s nominee faces a civil penalty of up to $1,000.8Washington State Legislature. Washington Code 29A.84 – Crimes and Penalties Separately, an elector who refuses to cast a conforming ballot is treated as having resigned. The secretary of state then fills the vacancy from a list supplied by the elector’s party, and the replacement votes for the nominee.9Washington State Legislature. RCW 29A.56.090 – Presidential Electors – Substitution
The two mechanisms do different work. The fine deters. The substitution corrects the outcome in real time. After Chiafalo, states are free to use either or both.
Where the Law Stands Now
When the decision came down, 32 states and the District of Columbia required electors to pledge their votes to the popular vote winner, but only 15 backed those pledges with any kind of sanction.7Congressional Research Service. Supreme Court Clarifies Rules for Electoral College – States May Restrict Faithless Electors The ruling cleared the constitutional obstacle for the rest. By 2026, roughly 26 states have binding laws that include replacement procedures for noncompliant electors, a meaningful jump but still short of universal coverage.
Those gaps matter most in close states. Some presidential battlegrounds still rely on tradition and party loyalty rather than a formal mechanism. Chiafalo settled what states may do; it did not require any state to act. Whether a faithless elector faces real consequences continues to depend on the state where the elector serves.