Chiafalo v. Washington
U.S. Supreme Court · decided July 6, 2020 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- July 6, 2020
- Term
- October Term 2019
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Kagan
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court. Every four years, millions of Americans cast a ballot for a presidential candidate. Their votes, though, actually go toward selecting members of the Electoral College, whom each State appoints based on the popular returns. Those few "electors" then choose the President. The States have devised mechanisms to ensure that the electors they appoint vote for the presidential candidate their citizens have preferred. With two partial exceptions, every State appoints a slate of electors selected by the political party whose candidate has won the State's popular vote. Most States also compel electors to pledge in advance to support the nominee of that party. This Court upheld such a pledge requirement decades ago, rejecting the argument that the Constitution "demands absolute freedom for the elector to vote his own choice." Ray v. Blair , 343 U.S. 214, 228, 72 S.Ct. 654, 96 L.Ed. 894 (1952). Today, we consider whether a State may also penalize an elector for breaking his pledge and voting for someone other than the presidential candidate who won his State's popular vote. We hold that a State may do so. I Our Constitution's method of picking Presidents emerged from an eleventh-hour compromise. The issue, one delegate to the Convention remarked, was "the most difficult of all [that] we have had to decide." 2 Records of the Federal…
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