Democrats would have some options if disobedient Presidential electors carry through on recent threat

December 19 is the real day of voting in America when our electors meet in their respective state capitols to select a President. Actually, nowadays Presidential electors of our Electoral College follow their state’s popular vote. But one Washington state Democratic presidential elector says they will not vote for Hillary Clinton, no matter what. The disobedient Presidential elector in Washington State is named Robert Satiacum, a Bernie Sanders supporter and a member of the Puyallup Tribe – a federally recognized Coast Salish Native American tribe.

Election expert Edward Foley took a look at what would happen if this were the case in what Ballot Access News founder Richard Winger calls a “detailed, careful, neutral analysis of the consequences”. Take a look at this excerpt:

Were the Washington Legislature to try to do something about the potential problem of a faithless elector, by for example providing for the appointment of different electors other than the one appointed as a result of the popular vote on November 8, it would seem necessary—pursuant to U.S.C. § 1—for the state legislature to act prior to November 8, so that this alternative method of appointment can occur on the congressionally mandated date of November 8. Thus, as a practical matter it would seem too late (as I writing this analysis late on Sunday, November 6).

Congress does have a separate statutory provision to cover the situation in which a state, for some reason, has failed to make its appointment of presidential electors on the mandated date (November 8). This is 3 U.S.C. § 2, and it states: “Whenever any State has held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and has failed to make a choice on the day prescribed by law, the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such a manner as the legislature of such State may direct.” But this language would not seem to apply to the situation of a faithless elector. The problem with a faithless elector is not failing to be appointed on November 8; it is the entirely different circumstance that the elector chooses not act in accordance with the pledge required by state law.