America’s Supreme Court considers the rights of “faithless” presidential electors

MOST AMERICANS would like to abolish the electoral college, the idiosyncratic institution that picks presidents six weeks after election day. Twice this century, candidates who received more votes in the nationwide tally watched their rivals move into the White House the next January. But in 2016, when Hillary Clinton, the popular-vote winner, was vanquished by Donald Trump, another electoral-college flashpoint came to light.

The controversy over whether America’s 538 electors are free to deviate from their pledges comes to the quarantined Supreme Court live by telephone on May 13th. So-called “faithless” electors are rare, but nothing new. Ninety electors since 1796 have cast a ballot for someone other than their party’s elected nominee, including 63 who sought to replace candidates who had died after the general election. Some 27 electors have simply scrapped their pledged candidate in favour of another.

These switches have never turned an election. But like the emoluments clauses, the rights of electoral-college members were a constitutional obscurity until the Trump era. Activists seeking to subvert Mr Trump’s victory in 2016 spurred seven electors to break their pledges—short of the 37 needed, but more than in any previous presidential election. Some defectors ran into legal trouble. Peter Chiafalo from Washington...