# Chiafalo v. Washington Decided **July 6, 2020**, unanimously. The Supreme Court held that a state may enforce a presidential elector's pledge to support the candidate who won the state's popular vote — including by fining a defector, as Washington State had done to three electors in 2016. Justice Kagan wrote for the Court; Justice Thomas concurred in the judgment on Tenth Amendment rather than Article II grounds. The companion case, *Colorado Department of State v. Baca*, was resolved the same day on the same reasoning, sustaining removal and replacement of an elector as well as fines. The holding rests on the states' power to appoint electors "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct" — a power broad enough, the Court said, to include conditions on the appointment. The practical effect was to shut down the [[Faithless Elector]] route months before the 2020 election, which is part of why the subsequent effort to overturn the result targeted the certification and counting machinery instead. See [[Electoral College Process Flow]]. This is a stub — expand with the oral argument, the Thomas concurrence, and the pre-2020 elector-defection literature it displaced. ## See Also - [[Electoral College Process Flow]] - [[Faithless Elector]] - [[Electoral College]] - [[Fake Electors Scheme]]