Chiafalo v. Washington
E6561
Chiafalo v. Washington is a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court case that unanimously upheld states’ authority to penalize or replace “faithless electors” who do not vote in line with their state’s popular vote in presidential elections.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Chiafalo v. Washington canonical | 5 |
| Peter B. Chiafalo, et al. v. State of Washington | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T21171 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Chiafalo v. Washington Context triple: [Electoral College, notableSupremeCourtCase, Chiafalo v. Washington]
-
A.
Obergefell v. Hodges
Obergefell v. Hodges is the landmark 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide by ruling that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.
-
B.
Reynolds v. United States
Reynolds v. United States is an 1879 U.S. Supreme Court case that established the distinction between protected religious belief and regulable religiously motivated conduct, holding that the Free Exercise Clause does not excuse individuals from compliance with otherwise valid criminal laws such as those banning polygamy.
-
C.
Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah
Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah is a 1993 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down city ordinances targeting Santería animal sacrifice and clarified that laws burdening religious practice must be neutral and generally applicable under the Free Exercise Clause.
-
D.
Arizona v. United States
Arizona v. United States is a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court case that limited state authority over immigration enforcement by affirming broad federal power in this area.
-
E.
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the federal constitutional right to abortion.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Chiafalo v. Washington Target entity description: Chiafalo v. Washington is a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court case that unanimously upheld states’ authority to penalize or replace “faithless electors” who do not vote in line with their state’s popular vote in presidential elections.
-
A.
Obergefell v. Hodges
Obergefell v. Hodges is the landmark 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide by ruling that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.
-
B.
Reynolds v. United States
Reynolds v. United States is an 1879 U.S. Supreme Court case that established the distinction between protected religious belief and regulable religiously motivated conduct, holding that the Free Exercise Clause does not excuse individuals from compliance with otherwise valid criminal laws such as those banning polygamy.
-
C.
Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah
Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah is a 1993 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down city ordinances targeting Santería animal sacrifice and clarified that laws burdening religious practice must be neutral and generally applicable under the Free Exercise Clause.
-
D.
Arizona v. United States
Arizona v. United States is a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court case that limited state authority over immigration enforcement by affirming broad federal power in this area.
-
E.
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the federal constitutional right to abortion.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
United States Supreme Court case
ⓘ
constitutional law case ⓘ election law case ⓘ legal case ⓘ |
| affirms | judgment of the Washington Supreme Court ⓘ |
| aroseFrom |
Washington
ⓘ
surface form:
State of Washington
|
| concerns |
enforcement of elector pledges
ⓘ
presidential elections in the United States ⓘ state authority over presidential electors ⓘ |
| hasAreaOfLaw |
constitutional law
ⓘ
election law ⓘ public law ⓘ |
| hasChiefJusticeAtDecision |
John G. Roberts Jr.
ⓘ
surface form:
John G. Roberts, Jr.
|
| hasCitation | 591 U.S. ___ (2020) ⓘ |
| hasCountry |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| hasCourt | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| hasDecisionDate | 2020-07-06 ⓘ |
| hasDecisionType | unanimous decision ⓘ |
| hasDocketNumber | No. 19-465 ⓘ |
| hasFullCaseName |
Chiafalo v. Washington
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Peter B. Chiafalo, et al. v. State of Washington
|
| hasHolding |
States may penalize or replace presidential electors who fail to vote in accordance with their state’s popular vote
ⓘ
The Constitution does not prohibit states from enforcing an elector’s pledge to support the state’s popular-vote winner ⓘ |
| hasImpact |
clarified that states may enforce elector pledges in presidential elections
ⓘ
limited discretion of individual presidential electors to vote contrary to the state popular vote ⓘ |
| hasJurisdiction | federal question jurisdiction ⓘ |
| hasKeyPhrase |
faithless electors
ⓘ
pledged electors ⓘ state authority to bind electors ⓘ |
| hasLegalIssue |
Electoral College
ⓘ
constitutionality of penalties for faithless electors ⓘ faithless electors ⓘ state power to regulate presidential electors ⓘ |
| hasLowerCourt | Washington Supreme Court ⓘ |
| hasMajorityOpinionBy | Elena Kagan ⓘ |
| hasOutcome | Washington’s fines on faithless electors were upheld ⓘ |
| hasPetitioner | Peter B. Chiafalo ⓘ |
| hasRespondent |
Washington
ⓘ
surface form:
State of Washington
|
| hasSubjectMatter | scope of state power under the Electors Clause ⓘ |
| hasTimePeriod | post-2016 U.S. presidential election era ⓘ |
| hasVote | 9-0 ⓘ |
| hasYearOfDecision | 2020 ⓘ |
| interprets |
Article II of the United States Constitution
ⓘ
surface form:
Article II of the U.S. Constitution
Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution ⓘ
surface form:
Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
United States Constitution ⓘ
surface form:
U.S. Constitution
|
| isRelatedCaseTo | Colorado Department of State v. Baca ⓘ |
| relatesTo |
Electoral College system in the United States
ⓘ
democratic accountability of electors ⓘ state election laws ⓘ |
| wasArguedIn | 2020 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Chiafalo v. Washington Description of subject: Chiafalo v. Washington is a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court case that unanimously upheld states’ authority to penalize or replace “faithless electors” who do not vote in line with their state’s popular vote in presidential elections.
Referenced by (6)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Peter B. Chiafalo, et al. v. State of Washington