State Republican parties have nominated 14 of the 84 fake electors from the 2020 presidential election to serve again as Republican party presidential electors, an indication of the legitimacy that election deniers continue to hold in some quarters of the GOP.
The Republican parties of Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Nevada have each nominated one or more electors who attempted to submit themselves as electors for Donald Trump and Mike Pence in 2020 despite the former president losing in their states.
Presidential electors typically perform a rote but critical behind-the-scenes role in elections. Electors are first nominated by their political party, before voters choose their preferred candidate by casting a ballot. The National Archives explains the process: “When you vote for a Presidential candidate, you aren’t actually voting for President. You are telling your State which candidate you want your State to vote for at the meeting of electors.”
In 2020, despite a majority of voters in New Mexico, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan voting for Biden, Republican electors went ahead and submitted certificates for Trump, mimicking the process they would have performed if Trump had won there.
During a Michigan Republican party convention to nominate candidates for office last month, the party nominated six people who served as fake electors in 2020 to be presidential electors for Trump again in the 2024 general election, according to Detroit News. The nominees – Meshawn Maddock, Amy Facchinello, John Haggard, Timothy King, Marian Sheridan and Hank Choate – all face felony charges for attempting to falsely certify the Michigan election for Trump. Maddock, a former co-chair of the Michigan Republican party, drew condemnation the same week for using an anti-gay slur in a social media post on 23 August.
In Pennsylvania, the state Republican party submitted a list of presidential electors to the secretary of state’s office that included Bill Bachenberg, Bernadette Comfort, Ash Khare, Pat Poprik and Andy Reilly, the investigative outlet Spotlight PA reported in August. Comfort and Reilly serve in key elected positions within the Pennsylvania Republican party, and Bachenberg, a prominent local businessman, allegedly played a role in elevating sham election audits across the country.
During their convention this year, the Nevada Republican party nominated two fake electors to serve again in the 2024 election: Michael McDonald, the chair of the Nevada Republican party, and Jesse Law, chairman of the Republican party of Clark county.
The Republican party of New Mexico nominated one fake elector, Deborah Weh Maestas, the former chair of the state GOP, to serve again in 2024.
No fake electors will represent Arizona, Georgia or Wisconsin Republicans in the 2024 election. In Wisconsin, the 10 Republicans who served as fake electors in 2020 agreed to not serve as presidential electors again while Trump is on the ballot – the result of a lawsuit settled in December 2023.
False electors face criminal prosecution in Arizona, Michigan and Georgia for their role in attempting to overturn the presidential election. In Nevada, a judge dismissed a case against the state’s six false electors, and the people who submitted false electoral certificates for Trump in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and New Mexico have not faced prosecution.
Meanwhile, people who served as fake electors in 2020 have also continued to support the Trump-Vance ticket through campaign donations and served as delegates during the Republican national convention.
Across the country, pro-Trump Republicans who rejected the results of the 2020 election will serve in key roles administering elections this fall, from election-denying activists on the Georgia board of elections who have passed new voting rules to an effort by the Republican National Committee to flood the polls with election observers who are skeptical of the process.
