3 U.S.C. § 4
Section 4 · Vacancies in electoral college
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 670 court decisions — leading case Board of Trustees v. Four-C-Aire, Inc. (2022)
Most recently applied in Wudi Industrial (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. v. Wai Wong (July 2025)
Cases citing this section usually also cite 4 U.S.C. § 4 · 9 U.S.C. § 4 · 12 U.S.C. § 4
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Each State may, by law enacted prior to election day, provide for the filling of any vacancies which may occur in its college of electors when such college meets to give its electoral vote.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Editorial Notes
Amendments
2022—Pub. L. 117–328 inserted "enacted prior to election day" after "by law".