Republicans bring back fake electors in battlegrounds

Many of the people preparing to cast votes for Donald Trump in the Electoral College in 2024 were involved in his plot to subvert the election in 2020.

Some are even facing criminal charges for it.

Of the 93 Republicans designated as prospective presidential electors for Trump from the seven battleground states, eight are facing felony charges for signing false Electoral College certificates in 2020, according to a POLITICO analysis. Another five signed similar certificates in 2020 but were not charged. And at least six others played notable roles in challenging the results of the 2020 election or promoting election conspiracy theories.

All told, at least 1 in 5 prospective Trump electors from battleground states this year had some connection to the scheme to overturn the 2020 election.

There’s little reason to believe that Trump or his allies would attempt to reenact the false elector scheme, given the prolonged criminal proceedings against the fake electors and the maturation of the “Stop the Steal” movement. But the reemergence of these Republicans demonstrates the power that election denialism continues to hold in a Republican Party led by Trump, who routinely foments false claims of voter fraud — and has deployed some of those same false claims to raise doubts about the 2024 election.

Rather than being punished or shunted aside for their role in an attempt to overturn a democratic election, they’ve been elevated. The GOP has rewarded those accused of felony crimes with a return to the coveted position they stand accused of abusing four years ago.

Despite the sweeping losses election deniers have suffered at the ballot box, rejection of the last presidential outcome continues to be a mainstream belief among GOP leaders within the states. A significant share of these electors come from within the official state party apparatuses, including party chairs from Georgia, Nevada and Arizona.

“It would appear that the party leadership in the states where there are fraudulent electors serving as electors again are not taking seriously things like the criminal charges that have been brought against these fraudulent electors,” said Mary McCord, a Georgetown law professor and executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.

Typically, presidential candidates and political parties nominate slates of potential electors in each state who are only called to action if they prevail in the election. Prior to 2020, those slots were primarily seen as ceremonial, often awarded to party elders, prominent activists or celebrities, and sometimes little-known figures who won the seats at sparsely attended party conventions. But both parties have taken a more active role in ensuring that only true loyalists hold the positions since Trump’s 2016 victory, which was followed by a far-left effort to pressure electors to reject Trump.

After Trump lost the 2020 election, he hoped his vice president, Mike Pence, would claim unprecedented power to count the votes cast by the false electors from states where Joe Biden won the popular vote. Pence refused, dooming Trump’s plan. This time, Kamala Harris will be presiding and has said she would follow the same path as Pence.

Adding to the deterrent effect is a law signed by Biden in 2022 that aims to eliminate the potential for an alternate slate being counted by Congress. And prosecutors have shown they’ll bring felony charges in many cases against those who falsely pose as electors.

The return of the false electors as Trump’s 2024 designees is another sign of his expanded grip on the party. “It does show a lack of regard for the criminal and ethical problems with doing this,” McCord said.

Six of the returning fake electors hail from Michigan. John Haggard, Hank Choate, Timothy King, Meshawn Maddock, Amy Facchinello and Marian Sheridan were among the group of Michiganders who signed a document in 2020 purporting to be official electoral certificates claiming the state’s electoral votes went to Donald Trump, despite Biden winning Michigan by more than 150,000 votes. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, brought felony charges against them, including forgery-related crimes punishable by up to 14 years. Those cases are ongoing and all have pleaded not guilty.

An attorney for Choate, David Kallman, said he didn’t see a problem with him serving as an elector again, given that he was chosen at the state party convention. In legal proceedings, Choate has said that in 2020 he was acting under the direction of Trump campaign officials when he signed the alternate elector paperwork and did not intend to commit fraud. Many others involved in the false elector scheme have said the same — they thought their votes were placeholders in the event Trump prevailed in one of his many post-election lawsuits to reverse the outcome, not pawns for a controversy involving Pence.

“This election cycle doesn’t have anything to do with the last election cycle,” Kallman said. “If Kamala Harris wins in Michigan, I can guarantee you my client won’t be signing any alternate slate or doing anything like what happened last time. One can rest assured that.”

This year, Trump has continued to claim he can only lose the election if it is stolen from him, despite no evidence of fraud. He is widely expected to declare victory on election night even if the outcome is not yet clear. Unless Trump wins outright, his maneuvering has set the stage for a potentially protracted and perilous transfer of power.

In Nevada, the fake electors include GOP chair Michael McDonald and Clark County Chair Jesse Law, both of whom have been criminally charged for their roles in the 2020 process. Both have pleaded not guilty. (The case was dismissed over a venue issue in June but prosecutors are appealing the decision.) Attorney Brian Hardy, who represented indicted false elector Jim Hindle, was also nominated as a potential GOP elector for this election.

“It’s definitely disappointing,” said Amy Tarkanian, former chair of the Nevada Republican party. “These people continued to peddle and push not misinformation, which is accidental, but disinformation, which is intentional.”

Tarkanian, who has been outspoken about her opposition to Trump, said she wasn’t surprised to learn about the returning fake electors “because just looking at Nevada, you actually have party leadership that is filled with grifters,” she said.

The five Pennsylvania alternate electors returning this time include Bill Bachenberg — who chaired the group of 20 alternate electors last election — Curt Coccodrilli, Bernie Comfort, Ash Khare and Pat Poprick. The Pennsylvania cohort avoided criminal penalties by including on their certificates conditional language stating that their validity depended on court challenges — something also utilized by would-be GOP electors from New Mexico.

The GOP slates of elector nominees also include proponents of debunked conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen — true believers in the election denialism movement that now runs rampant within the Republican Party.

Georgia’s roster boasts hardline conservative activists, like GOP Chair Josh McKoon, who helped orchestrate the conservative takeover of the state elections board. It also includes Susan Voyles, a poll manager in 2020 who was fired after making debunked claims that dozens of absentee ballots were fraudulent. Voyles recently resurfaced as a defense witness in the bar discipline proceedings for Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who Trump nearly installed as attorney general to help effectuate his plans in 2020. There’s also Caroline Jeffords, state party secretary and lead plaintiff in a lawsuit requesting to unseal ballots to investigate alleged fraud.

Three pro-Trump activists in Georgia who signed the false elector documents in 2020 — including McKoon’s predecessor David Shafer — are facing criminal charges, while at least eight others received immunity deals in exchange for speaking with prosecutors.

In Arizona, there’s GOP party chair Gina Swoboda, the founder of an online resource for voter-fraud activists who want to inspect the voter rolls. Her predecessor, Kelli Ward, was criminally charged alongside the state’s entire 11-member GOP slate from 2020, in a case that remains pending. One false elector in that group has pleaded guilty to filing false papers.

Some of this year’s prospective GOP electors have contributed to the social media frenzy that has fueled baseless election security claims, like Wisconsin state Rep. Angie Sapik, who was attacked by Democrats in her 2022 run for the state legislature over since-deleted tweets linked to Sapik where she claimed the 2020 election was rigged and defended the events of the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Georgia elector nominee and Cobb County GOP chair Salleigh Grubbs has also made public posts on social media about debunked election conspiracies.

“What people need to understand is that I’m not done fighting against Voter Suppression,” Grubbs posted on Facebook in 2021. “You see, every illegal ballot, cancels a legal ballot. That’s suppression. I also am not done fighting against the theft of evidence in our 2020 Georgia Election. That’s right. Evidence was stolen and destroyed.”