The Olympian Logo

Two Washington state electors sue over law on election results in anti-Trump effort | The Olympian

×
  • E-edition
  • Home
    • Customer Service
    • About Us
    • Buy Photos and Pages
    • Contact Us
    • Plus
    • Mobile & Apps
    • Newsletters
    • Newspaper in Education
    • Subscribe
    • Subscriber Services
    • Archives

    • News
    • Business
    • Crime
    • Databases
    • Death Notices
    • Education
    • Local News
    • Military News
    • Obituaries
    • Politics & Government
    • State
    • Traffic
    • Watchdog
    • Weather
    • Opinion
    • Cartoons
    • Editorials
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Opinion Columns
    • Submit a Letter
    • Sports
    • College
    • High School
    • Mariners
    • Preps Stats
    • Seahawks
    • Sounders
    • UW Huskies
    • Politics
    • Living
    • Announcements
    • Food
    • Health & Fitness
    • Home & Garden
    • Travel
    • Entertainment
    • Arts & Culture
    • Comics
    • Puzzles & Games
    • Events Calendar
    • Horoscopes
    • Movies
    • Restaurants
    • Outdoors
    • Fishing

  • Classifieds
  • Jobs
  • Moonlighting
  • Cars
  • Homes
  • Place An Ad
  • Mobile & Apps

Politics & Government

Two Washington state electors sue over law on election results in anti-Trump effort

By Jim Brunner

Seattle Times

    ORDER REPRINT →

December 13, 2016 01:07 PM

Two Washington electors have filed a federal lawsuit challenging a law that would fine them up to $1,000 each if they disregard the state popular vote in the November presidential election.

Democratic electors Bret Chiafalo and Levi Guerra argue such penalties are unconstitutional, and that they should be able to cast their votes as they see fit when the Electoral College meets Dec. 19.

A hearing on their request for an injunction barring the state from enforcing the law is scheduled for Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

While that request is legally narrow, it is part of a longshot effort by some electors across the country to deny President-elect Donald Trump the White House — a movement gaining more attention after reports that the CIA has concluded Russia interfered in the election to aid Trump.

SIGN UP

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to The Olympian

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

The lawsuit has caught the attention of Trump’s campaign. Attorneys for the president-elect filed a motion Monday seeking to intervene in the case, arguing the lawsuit “threatens to undermine the many laws in other states that sensibly bind their electors’ votes to represent the will of the citizens, undermining the Electoral College.”

Chiafalo and Guerra, two of Washington’s 12 Democratic electors, signed pledges this year committing to cast their electoral votes for Hillary Clinton, who easily won Washington in the Nov. 8 election.

But they’re willing to break those pledges as part of a national movement of so-called “Hamilton Electors,” who are seeking to deny Trump the 270 Electoral College votes needed to make him president.

As Democratic electors, Chiafalo and Guerra were already assumed to be in Clinton’s column — so they can’t do anything to reduce Trump’s Electoral College count. But they’re trying to persuade Republican electors in other states to split from Trump and unite with them behind an as-yet-unnamed alternative GOP candidate.

“This is an emergency situation,” Chiafalo, of Everett, said Monday. He and Guerra, who lives in Grant County, have said they’d defy state law and support such a compromise Republican candidate when the Electoral College meets Dec. 19 for what normally is a symbolic vote.

If 37 Republican electors were to withhold their votes from Trump, the president-elect would be denied an Electoral College majority, sending the decision to the U.S. House of Representatives. The GOP-dominated House would be required to pick from among the top three electoral vote-getters, meaning Trump could still be made president.

In a seven-page complaint filed last week, attorneys for Chiafalo and Guerra argued Washington’s law penalizing electors for voting their consciences violates the constitution and renders the Electoral College meaningless.

Their complaint quotes Alexander Hamilton, one of the nation’s Founding Fathers, who wrote the Electoral College ought to serve as a stopgap against unqualified or corrupt candidates and would prevent “foreign powers” from gaining “an improper ascendant in our councils.”

In a response filed late Monday, state Attorney General Bob Ferguson, a Democrat, defended the state’s law and argued Chiafalo and Guerra’s request for an injunction is weak on its legal merits.

Washington’s law merely imposes a “modest civil penalty” for electors who violate their pledges, and doesn’t call for invalidating their votes, Ferguson’s office noted in a legal filing.

“No court has ever deemed such a requirement unconstitutional, and Plaintiffs’ unprecedented claims have no likelihood of success on the merits,” Ferguson’s legal brief said. “It does not violate the Constitution for the State to attempt to hold electors to their own voluntary pledges to follow the will of the voters.”

Chiafalo, originally a Bernie Sanders supporter, said before the election he might not cast an electoral vote for Clinton, whom he expected to win.

Similar lawsuits have been filed by electors in Colorado and by a Democratic lawmaker in California.

In Colorado, Republican Secretary of State Wayne Williams blasted the lawsuit by two electors there as an “arrogant” effort to nullify the popular vote in that state, according to The Denver Post.

In the Nov. 8 election, Trump won enough states to receive 306 Electoral College votes, compared with 232 for Clinton, despite her lead of more than 2.6 million in the national popular vote.

The lawsuit named Secretary of State Kim Wyman, a Republican, and Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, as defendants. Spokespersons for both offices declined to comment Monday on the merits of the case.

Dave Ammons, a spokesman for Wyman, said her office was working to figure out how to administer the $1,000 penalty for so-called “faithless electors” — which has never actually been assessed here.

The state law creating the penalty was enacted after a Republican elector, Mike Padden, in 1976 declined to cast his vote for Gerald Ford, who’d won the state. Padden, now a state senator, backed Ronald Reagan instead.

  Comments  

Videos

Trump announces national emergency to get border wall funding

Sen. McConnell says Trump will sign spending bill and declare a national emergency

View More Video

Trending Stories

Woman dies after wreck on highway in Thurston County

February 17, 2019 11:20 AM

Infant girl, plus woman holding her, suffer gunshot wounds after man ‘shows off’ handgun at party

February 17, 2019 09:48 AM

Where’s the Lacey Albertsons? It’s gone, now that senior housing project is under way

February 18, 2019 02:53 PM

Woman who died in Thurston County wreck has been identified

February 18, 2019 04:59 PM

Local business owner says she is running for Lacey City Council

February 18, 2019 02:03 PM
Local display advertising by PaperG

Read Next

‘It is time to complete that revolution’: Sanders says he’s running for president

Local

‘It is time to complete that revolution’: Sanders says he’s running for president

By Alex Roarty

    ORDER REPRINT →

February 19, 2019 04:00 AM

Bernie Sanders said Tuesday that he is running for president, telling supporters that Democrats must not only unite to defeat Donald Trump in 2020, but finally combat the systemic economic and racial injustice he says has deeply wounded the country.

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to The Olympian

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE POLITICS & GOVERNMENT

Sen. Bernie Sanders says he’s running for president in 2020

Nation & World

Sen. Bernie Sanders says he’s running for president in 2020

February 19, 2019 04:37 AM

Business

Former House lawmakers join Washington lobbying firm

February 19, 2019 06:00 AM

National Politics

Recovery from 2017 Hurricane Harvey continues in Dickinson

February 19, 2019 05:55 AM
The Latest: Donatella Versace pays tribute to Lagerfeld

Celebrities

The Latest: Donatella Versace pays tribute to Lagerfeld

February 19, 2019 05:53 AM

Nation & World

Ahead of election, tech could unite Europe’s populist groups

February 19, 2019 05:44 AM

National Politics

Trump 2020 campaign announces communication team

February 19, 2019 05:36 AM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

The Olympian App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Contests-Promotions
  • Vacation Hold
  • Rewards
  • Pay Your Bill
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Photo Store
  • Archives
Advertising
  • Information
  • Place a Classified
  • Local Deals
  • Place an Obituary
  • Today's Circulars
  • Special Sections
Copyright
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story