Michigan Alternate Electors Plead Not Guilty to Forgery Charges

Republican electors face eight felony charges brought by Democrat attorney general

Supporters of President Donald Trump rally at the Michigan state Capitol in Lansing after Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 elections, on Nov. 7, 2020. Seth Herald/AFP via Getty Images

Nine of the 16 alternate Michigan electors who cast votes for then-President Donald Trump although he wasn’t the state’s certified winner in the 2020 election, pleaded not guilty to forgery charges on Aug. 10.

The Ingham County arraignment was conducted via video conference, The Detroit News reported.

Each of the electors is facing eight felony charges brought on July 18 by Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel, a Democrat.

The attorney general alleged that each of the 16 committed forgery and election law forgery, as well as conspiracies to commit said crimes.

Michigan election law (pdf) prohibits the knowing publication of false documents “with the intent to defraud.”

The electors gathered at the then-headquarters of the Michigan Republican Party on Dec. 14, 2020, and signed a certificate to cast the state’s 16 electoral votes for President Trump, who, based on official results, lost the state by 3 percentage points.

The certificate falsely claimed that the electors met in the state’s Capitol. The document was then delivered to the National Archives and Congress.

Lawyers advising President Trump’s 2020 reelection bid devised the alternate elector strategy. It was a long-shot push to reverse election results in several states that they alleged were tainted by fraud and other illegalities.

The strategy was based on the precedent set in the 1960 Hawaii election contest between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Nixon was certified the winner, but the Kennedy campaign challenged the results in court. In order to preserve the option of the state’s electoral votes being counted, the Democrat electors signed a certificate casting the votes for Mr. Kennedy, claiming their votes were “certified by the Executive,” which wasn’t true. The lawsuit succeeded and the alternate votes were counted.

President Trump’s legal advisers went further. In one scenario, they proposed using the alternative electoral vote slates to have the vice president return the votes in those states to legislatures for recertification. In another, they proposed that the vice president reject both the official and the alternative slates in said states and declare the winner on the remaining electoral votes only, which would have handed the victory to President Trump.

If that were to happen, the move would have been immediately challenged in court and ultimately resolved by the Supreme Court, according to Brett Tolman, a former federal prosecutor and counsel to two Republican heads of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Then-Vice President Mike Pence refused the proposals.

Based on President Trump’s effort to reverse the election result, including the alternate elector plan, special counsel Jack Smith charged the former president on Aug. 1 with a conspiracy to “impair, obstruct, and defeat” the collecting and counting of electoral votes; conspiracy against Americans’ right to vote; obstruction of the electoral vote counting by Congress on Jan. 6, 2021; and conspiracy to obstruct the electoral vote counting.

President Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges.

He is also expected to be charged by a district attorney in Georgia in relation to his efforts to challenge the 2020 election result in that state, including by arranging alternative electors.