Fake electors who tried to 'steal the 2020 election' in Wisconsin may soon be brought to justice

25 July 2023

In late 2020, fake electors supporting Donald Trump tried to overturn the presidential election results in seven states that now-President Joe Biden won. They were unsuccessful: Biden was sworn in as president on January 20, 2021, and Trump left the White House that day. But the fake electors scheme is remembered as one of the many examples of Trump supporters trying to keep him in office despite the fact that he lost.

In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on July 25, Madison, Wisconsin-based journalist Bill Lueders offers some reasons why the fake electors who tried to "steal the election" in his state may finally be brought to justice.

"Wisconsin is one of seven states — along with Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada and Pennsylvania — in which fraudulent electors met on December 14, 2020, the same day as genuine electors, to sign official-looking papers asserting that Trump and not Biden had won," Lueders explains. "These were then sent to the National Archives, giving cover for then–Vice President Mike Pence to declare the loser the winner, which he refused to do…. Even in Wisconsin, where Democratic prosecutors have tended to view the fake electors plot with cowardly lion trepidation, there are signs that the perpetrators could yet be held to account."

If December 2020's fake electors are brought to justice in Wisconsin, Lueders reports, one of the people to thank will be Jeff Mandell — co-founder of Law Forward. The group, according to Lueders, "played a key role in exposing the fake electors plot" and filed a lawsuit alleging "that the state's ten fake electors and two instigators broke multiple laws."

Lueders notes, "The lawsuit names all ten individuals who met secretly at the Wisconsin state Capitol on December 14, 2020, to sign the papers attesting that Trump won the election…. Mandell also rejects as 'profoundly misguided' the argument that the fake electors were acting on the advice of attorneys."

Sixteen fake electors are facing criminal charges in Michigan, and Mandell is hoping the same thing will happen in Wisconsin.

Mandell told The Bulwark, "My view is that the federal prosecutors should deal with violations of federal law and state prosecutors should deal with violations of state law. It's my belief the fraudulent electors violated both."

The Bulwark's full report is available at this link.

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