According to State Attorney Dana Nessel, who is a Democrat, all 16 are charged with eight counts, including violations of several state election laws. Each count in the indictment carries a penalty value of between five and 14 years in prison.
Among the suspects are Michigan Republican National Committee Chair Kathy Berden, as well as Meshawn Maddock, former co-chair of the party’s Michigan chapter.
Electors are the people appointed to represent the voters in a presidential election. The winner of the popular vote in each state determines which party’s electors are sent to the Electoral College, which meets in December after the election to certify the election results.
Those now indicted are said to have gathered at the former Michigan Republican Party headquarters on December 14, 2020 and signed several certificates claiming they were the rightful electors of Trump. These false documents were then sent to Congress and the National Archives.
Fake certificates of this type — falsely claiming Trump won — were signed in a total of seven state states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The forgeries were ignored, but efforts to stop the nomination of Joe Biden for president have been the subject of several criminal investigations in connection with Donald Trump’s attempt to invalidate the 2020 election.
“The actions of the ‘fake electors’ undermined public confidence in the independence of our election system and, we believe, clearly violated Michigan election laws,” Nessel said in a statement.