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Constitutional Law Keyed to Rotunda
Chiafalo v. Washington
Citation:
140 S.Ct. 2316 (2020)Facts
Three Washington electors violated their pledges in the 2016 presidential election. In 2016, Washington’s voters chose Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump for President. The State thus appointed as its electors the nominees of the Washington State Democratic Party. Among these Democratic electors were petitioners Peter Chiafalo, and two others. All three pledged to support Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College. But they decided to case their ballots for someone else as that vote approached, in the hope that they could encourage other electors to followed their example. Eventually candidate Trump became the President. The State fined the electors for breaking their pledges to support the same candidate its voters had.
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