Michigan 'fake electors' will not face criminal trail

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Fifteen so-called fake electors in Michigan will not face a criminal trial over their alleged involvement in efforts to overturn former President Joe Biden's 2020 election win in the state, Judge Kristen D. Simmons announced Tuesday.

"These cases will not be bound over to the circuit court," Simmons, a state district court judge, said. "Each case will be dismissed."

Simmons said the Michigan Republicans involved in the effort were trying to seek redress after Trump’s 2020 election loss and attempted to perform their civic duties.

"The prosecution would like the court to believe that these named defendants were savvy or sophisticated enough to understand fully the electoral process, which the court does disagree because the document that was presented doesn't even align with the level of sophistication that they want me to believe," she said before announcing her decision.

The decision caps off a years-long court saga over the alleged efforts to deliver the state for President Donald Trump.

Michigan was the first state to charge fake electors. In 2023, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed charges against 16 people whom she accused of trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election by signing paperwork falsely claiming that Trump had won. Charges against one of the defendants was later dropped after he agreed to “cooperate fully” with the investigation.

All of the defendants initially pleaded not guilty in 2023. Each was charged with eight felonies.

Nessel accused the defendants of having “met covertly in the basement of the Michigan Republican Party headquarters,” where they “signed their names to multiple certificates stating they were the ‘duly elected and qualified electors for President and Vice President of the United States of America for the State of Michigan.’”

“These false documents were then transmitted to the United States Senate and National Archives in a coordinated effort to award the state’s electoral votes to the candidate of their choosing, in place of the candidates actually elected by the people of Michigan,” Nessel’s office said in the 2023 press release announcing the charges.