Oct.30

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Cases against the Fake 2020 Electors Are Fizzling Out

As you probably recall, after losing the 2020 election, Donald Trump's plan was to have Mike Pence reject the electoral votes from some of the states he lost and then have slates of fake electors replace the real ones. Pence didn't play ball, but state AGs in some of the states brought fraud and other charges against the fake electors, anyway. How is that going? Here is the status in five states:

• Arizona: AG Kris Mayes has to decide what to do next. She indicted Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, Boris Epshteyn and a dozen others, including the fake electors themselves. In May, a state judge, Sam Myers, sent the case back to the grand jury because he thinks she didn't explain the law about tallying electoral votes carefully enough to the grand jurors. Mayes appealed, but the appeals court declined to take the case. She has until Nov. 21 to file an appeal to the state Supreme Court. That leaves her with three choices: (1) try to get the Arizona Supreme Court to overturn Myers and bring the case to trial, (2) go back to the grand jury for a new indictment after a better explanation of the law or (3) dismiss the charges.
  
  
• Georgia: Ah yes, Georgia. Remember this one, where Fulton County DA Fani Willis picked her inexperienced boyfriend, Nathan Wade, to handle the case instead of using an experienced prosecutor on her own staff? Her foolishness is beyond all comprehension since she knew the entire world was watching the case. The other side sued to kick her off the case and won. She appealed, but the state Supreme Court denied cert. Now the Georgia Prosecuting Attorney's Council can appoint a new prosecutor if it wants to. Judge Scott McAfee gave the council until Nov. 14 to do so.
  
  
• Michigan: Here a judge dismissed the charges against the 15 pro-Trump electors saying, basically, they were dumb stooges and didn't even understand what they signed up for. Judge Kristen Simmons said the defendants were not "savvy or sophisticated" enough to understand the electoral process. That sounds to us like a dangerous precedent, especially if someone is charged with violating a complicated law—say, insider trading—as in "Your honor, I have no idea what insider trading is, so I can't possibly have done it." There is a 21-day window for an appeal, but the judge forgot to issue a written order, so the clock never started and AG Dana Nessel can still appeal if she wants to.
  
  
• Nevada: AG Aaron Ford filed his case in Clark County but Judge Mary Kay Holthus ruled that he picked the wrong venue. He should have filed in Carson City, the state capital, which is its own county. Ford appealed to the state Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments in August. He also refiled in Carson City as a backup, in case he loses the appeal. A judge there scheduled the trial for next July. Ford prefers Clark County because it is more Democratic than Carson City, so he would get a more favorable jury pool there. He is waiting for the state Supreme Court to rule.
  
  
• Wisconsin: AG Josh Kaul's case is more or less on track. Maybe by 2030 or 2040 it will go to trial. At least Kaul hasn't made any procedural errors, like in Georgia and Nevada, and hasn't gotten any adverse rulings from judges, like in Arizona and Michigan.

A nonlawyer might be forgiven for thinking that when doing something so obviously criminal as fraudulently claiming to be an elector when you knew very well you weren't, 4 years later, the case ought to have long-since gone to trial. But that is not how it works. A case can clearly be made that something is radically wrong with the legal system when 4 years after the indictments, none of the cases have gone to trial. The old maxim sometimes attributed to Thomas Jefferson is correct: "Justice delayed is justice denied." (V)