WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Nevada charged six Republican fake electors in connection with a scheme to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden, while 10 false electors reached a legal settlement in Wisconsin that affirmed the Democrat’s victory.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
Wednesday’s actions marked the latest legal developments in a 2020 plan to persuade Republican-controlled legislatures in election battleground states to name their own Trump-friendly electors.
The indictments made Nevada the third state, behind Michigan and Georgia, to bring charges against Republicans who served as fake electors in 2020. In Wisconsin’s civil lawsuit, the Republican electors admitted the effort to overturn election results and acknowledged Biden’s victory as legitimate.
In U.S. presidential elections, voters do not directly pick who goes to the White House. Instead, their ballots determine each state’s slate of electors, who select the president in a process mandated by the Constitution.
CONTEXT
Trump, 77, the frontrunner in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, pushed the false claims of a stolen election that led to the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s federal indictment accusing Trump of efforts to overturn the 2020 election included a charge that the then-president and his allies sought slates of phony electors to support his false claims that he beat Biden.
KEY QUOTES
“Fake electors schemes in Nevada, Wisconsin, and Michigan may not involve household names, but they could produce important witnesses and documents for Jack Smith, and bring accountability for abuse of power in their states,” University of Michigan law professor Barbara McQuade said on social media platform X on Thursday.
“We cannot allow attacks on democracy to go unchallenged,” Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford said in a statement.
WHAT’S NEXT
Trump and some supporters continue to embrace false claims of widespread election fraud that were rejected by multiple courts, state reviews and members of Trump’s own administration. The legal proceedings involving electors could buoy prosecutors in some of the four criminal cases Trump faces as he seeks to challenge Biden in November.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
