Michigan Charges 16 People With Acting as False Electors for Trump in 2020

Michigan’s attorney general on Tuesday brought conspiracy and forgery charges against 16 people she said were part of a multistate effort to cast doubt about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and keep former President Donald Trump in power. 

The Michigan residents allegedly signed documents in December 2020 falsely claiming to be the rightful state electors pledged to vote for Trump. They tried to present copies of the documents to the Michigan legislature, the U.S. Congress and the National Archives, seeking to put themselves forward as an alternative pro-Trump slate of electors at a meeting of the Electoral College later that month, according to the attorney general’s office. 

“This plan—to reject the will of the voters and undermine democracy—was fraudulent and legally baseless,” said state Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat. “The False Electors’ actions undermined the public’s faith in the integrity of our elections, and not only violated the spirit of the laws enshrining and defending our democracy but, we believe, also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan and peaceably transfer power in America.”

Each of the 16 defendants has been charged with three felony conspiracy counts and five felony counts related to forgery. The most serious charges carry a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison, but most defendants don’t receive the maximum sentence allowable in criminal cases.

The defendants are to be arraigned at a court near Lansing and have yet to enter pleas. 

Nessel’s decision to bring a case in Michigan represents the first criminal charges stemming from the alternative slates of Trump electors, which were also organized in six other states: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Several other state and federal criminal inquiries are examining the matter, including those headed by Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis and Jack Smith, a special counsel named by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Several alternative electors in other states have been offered immunity, a sign that their testimony is being sought against higher-level officials.  

The fake electoral slates were part of a broader plan by Trump and his Republican allies across the country to put forward alternative electors in more than a half-dozen battleground states in the hope that Congress would decline to certify the 2020 election. The aim was to cause confusion and dispute the congressional certification of the election, which was scheduled for Jan. 6, 2021. 

A refusal by Congress to accept the Electoral College vote would have thrown the decision on who would be the next president to the U.S. House of Representatives, where Republicans had an advantage under the voting procedures used in Congress to settle such disputes.

Joe Biden beat Trump by more than 150,000 votes in Michigan in the November vote, but a presidential election isn’t complete until a vote of the Electoral College and certification of those results by Congress. Despite complaints from Trump and his allies, there is no evidence of widespread fraud during the 2020 elections. 

In a speech in Washington on the day Congress was set to certify the electoral votes, Trump encouraged his supporters to “make your voices heard.”

“You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated,” Trump told supporters in a speech on the Ellipse, near the White House. 

Shortly afterward, the certification of the election on Jan. 6 was interrupted by an assault on the Capitol by supporters of Trump, many of whom had attended Trump’s speech and then marched toward the Capitol. Trump’s actions in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6 are under investigation by Smith and Willis. On Tuesday, Trump said he had been informed that he was a target of Smith’s investigation into efforts to reverse the 2020 election.

Write to Byron Tau at [email protected]