July 18 (UPI) — Michigan’s attorney general announced charges Tuesday against 16 “fake electors” for Donald Trump.
The sixteen are facing eight felonies — including conspiracy and election law forgery — in an alleged scheme to reverse Joe Biden‘s victory in Michigan’s 2020 election.
The charges carry maximum prison terms of up to 14 years.
“The false electors’ actions undermined the public’s faith in the integrity of our elections and, we believe, also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan,” Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement Tuesday.
According to Nessel, the defendants met covertly on Dec. 14, 2020, in the basement of Michigan’s GOP headquarters and signed documents claiming to be legally qualified electors for the state in the Electoral College.
“That was a lie,” Nessel said. “They weren’t the duly elected and qualified electors, and each of the defendants knew it.” The meeting came one month after Biden defeated Trump by more than 154,000 votes in the state.
“Some of the false electors attempted to enter the state Capitol and deliver their fabricated electoral votes to the Senate floor but were turned away,” Nessel added.
The 16 electors were identified as Kathy Berden, 70: William Choate, 72; Amy Facchinello, 55; Clifford Frost, 75; Stanley Grot, 71; John Haggard, 82; Mary-Ann Henry, 65; Timothy King, 56; Michele Lundgren, 73; Meshawn Maddock, 55; James Renner, 76; Mayra Rodriguez, 64; Rose Rook, 81; Marian Sheridan, 69; Ken Thompson, 68; and Kent Vanderwood, 69.
The defendants have been given one week to surrender.
“My department has prosecuted numerous cases of election law violations throughout my tenure, and it would be malfeasance of the greatest magnitude if my department failed to act here in the face of overwhelming evidence of an organized effort to circumvent the lawfully cast ballots of Michigan voters in a presidential election,” Nessel added.
Alternate electors’ slates also came from Arizona, Georgia, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to Nessel, who said members had hoped former Vice President Mike Pence would accept them as valid when he certified the election on Jan. 6, 2021.
On Tuesday, Trump announced he is a target of a grand jury investigation looking into the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
While allies of Trump blamed unsubstantiated widespread ballot fraud for his loss in 2020, Nessel said “every serious challenge to the election had been denied, dismissed or otherwise rejected by the time the false electors convened.”