Colorado Dept. of State v. Baca
The Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling that had sided with a Colorado elector who voted for someone other than the state's popular-vote winner, upholding Colorado's authority to remove and replace so-called 'faithless electors.'
The decision — decided alongside a companion case, Chiafalo v. Washington — confirms that states may legally bind their presidential electors and enforce that requirement, settling a long-disputed question about how the Electoral College works.
How it got here: A federal trial court ruled for Colorado; the Tenth Circuit reversed, siding with the elector; Colorado asked the Supreme Court to step in and the Court agreed to hear it alongside Chiafalo v. Washington.
The Case in Depth
What happened
In the 2016 presidential election, Micheal Baca was a Colorado presidential elector pledged to Hillary Clinton, who had won Colorado's popular vote. Baca instead cast his Electoral College vote for a different candidate. Colorado removed him and replaced him with an elector who voted for Clinton. Baca sued, arguing the State had no authority to remove him for voting his conscience.
The question before the Court
Can a state legally remove and replace a presidential elector who refuses to cast their Electoral College vote for the candidate who won the state's popular vote?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court ruled that Colorado lawfully removed and replaced Micheal Baca after he refused to cast his Electoral College vote for the state's popular-vote winner. The decision rests entirely on the companion case, Chiafalo v. Washington, in which the Court held that states have broad constitutional authority to direct how their presidential electors vote and to enforce that requirement. Because Colorado's removal-and-replacement mechanism serves the same purpose as the measures upheld in Chiafalo, the Tenth Circuit's ruling that Colorado had acted unlawfully could not stand and was reversed.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
States that have laws requiring presidential electors to vote for the popular-vote winner can now enforce those laws with confidence, including by removing electors who refuse to comply. This reduces the practical risk that individual electors could unilaterally change a presidential election outcome by voting their own preference instead of the state's result.
What changes now
The Tenth Circuit's ruling in Baca's favor is undone. Colorado's practice of removing and replacing non-compliant presidential electors is affirmed as constitutional. The full legal reasoning governing faithless-elector laws nationwide is set out in the companion case, Chiafalo v. Washington, decided the same day. No further proceedings are required in this case.
What this does not decide
The decision does not address whether states without faithless-elector laws may enact them, nor does it decide the precise outer limits of state power over electors. The full constitutional analysis is in Chiafalo v. Washington; this opinion simply applies that ruling.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas agreed with the judgment reversing the Tenth Circuit but joined for the separate reasons he set out in his concurring opinion in the companion case, Chiafalo v. Washington. His concurrence there offers a different constitutional grounding for the same result.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court reversed the Tenth Circuit entirely on the strength of its companion ruling in Chiafalo v. Washington, decided the same day, which addressed the same legal question: whether states may constitutionally compel presidential electors to vote for the candidate who won the state's popular vote.
- In Chiafalo, the Court held that states have broad authority over their presidential electors under Article II of the Constitution, which gives states the power to appoint electors 'in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct' — a power the Court read to include directing how electors must vote.
- Because Colorado's removal-and-replacement mechanism serves the same purpose as Washington's fine (enforcing elector compliance), the Chiafalo ruling resolved this case as well, and the Tenth Circuit's contrary judgment in Baca's favor could not stand.