Though the facts behind the story have been known for more than nine months, many are now obsessed with what the presidential electors committed to Donald Trump did in December 2020, in seven key states. Their acts, many insist, were “fraudulent,” or “forgeries.” They establish, as Democratic California Rep. Pete Aguilar put it, a “dangerous precedent.”

But the “dangerous precedent” from that election is not what many of these electors did. The “dangerous precedent” is the potential it reveals.

The Trump electors in those seven states were acting on the basis of a well-known precedent, in the face of an even better-known feature of our Constitution. The 2020 election was not close. But under our law, any candidate challenging the results of a presidential election must take steps very much like what these electors did.

Though the Constitution gives the states the power to set the “manner” by which its electors are appointed, it gives Congress the power to say when those electors must vote. In close elections, that deadline can create an obvious problem. If the election is still contested in a state at the time the electors are to vote, which slate of electors should vote? Congress’ deadline is not a mere suggestion. In 1856, when a snowstorm blocked Wisconsin electors from voting on the day Congress had set, Congress debated for two days whether their votes could be counted. It didn’t matter in 1856. It could well matter in the future.

Which is why the practice has...

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