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2 

CHIAFALO v. WASHINGTON 

Opinion of the Court 

than the presidential candidate who won his State’s popu-
lar 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 Con-
vention of 1787, p. 501 (M. Farrand rev. 1966) (Farrand). 
Despite long debate and many votes, the delegates could not 
reach an agreement.  See generally N. Peirce & L. Longley,
The People’s President 19–22 (rev. 1981).  In the dying days 
of summer, they referred the matter to the so-called Com-
mittee of Eleven to devise a solution.  The Committee re-
turned with a proposal for the Electoral College.  Just two 
days later, the delegates accepted the recommendation with
but a few tweaks.  James Madison later wrote to a friend 
that the “difficulty of finding an unexceptionable [selection]
process” was “deeply felt by the Convention.”  Letter to G. 
Hay (Aug. 23, 1823), in 3 Farrand 458.  Because “the final 
arrangement of it took place in the latter stage of the Ses-
sion,” Madison continued, “it was not exempt from a degree 
of  the  hurrying  influence  produced  by  fatigue  and  impa-
tience in all such Bodies: tho’ the degree was much less than
usually prevails in them.”  Ibid.  Whether less or not, the 
delegates soon finished their work and departed for home. 
The provision they approved about presidential electors

is fairly slim.  Article II, §1, cl. 2 says: 

“Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Leg-
islature  thereof  may  direct,  a  Number  of  Electors, 
equal to the whole Number of Senators and Represent-
atives to which the State may be entitled in the Con-
gress:  but  no  Senator  or  Representative,  or  Person
holding  an  Office  of  Trust  or  Profit  under  the  United
States, shall be appointed an Elector.”