Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has announced charges against 16 people who signed certificates claiming that President Donald Trump won Michigan in the 2020 election.
Each of the 16 individuals faces multiple felony charges that in total carry a maximum penalty of 85 years in prison, in what Nessel’s office said was a “false electors scheme” in the wake of the 2020 presidential election.
“The false electors’ actions undermined the public’s faith in the integrity of our elections and, we believe, also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan,” Nessel said in a statement.
“My department has prosecuted numerous cases of election law violations throughout my tenure, and it would be malfeasance of the greatest magnitude if my department failed to act here in the face of overwhelming evidence of an organized effort to circumvent the lawfully cast ballots of millions of Michigan voters in a presidential election,” she added.
Following Mr. Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, Republican electors in seven states—including Michigan—cast alternative slates of votes for Mr. Trump.
While there has been precedent for dueling sets of electors casting votes in a presidential election, the large number of states to do so in 2020 sent the election into uncharted territory.
‘Duly Elected and Qualified Electors’
Republicans in some of the states said that the rationale for casting alternative slates of elector votes would preserve Mr. Trump’s legal claim for the election as legal challenges made their way through the courts.
“Sending more than one slate of electors is not unheard of,” said Meshawn Maddock, former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, in an emailed release in December 2020. “It’s our duty to the people of Michigan and to the U.S. Constitution to send another slate of electors if the election is in controversy or dispute—and clearly it is.”
By Tom Ozimek
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