Wisconsin governor pushes for prosecution of state’s 2020 fake electors

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) on Friday argued the 10 people who participated in the fake electors scheme in his state in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election for former President Trump should be charged for their actions.

“There has to be accountability,” Evers said after a bill signing ceremony, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “What they did was wrong, and so I’m hoping somebody will pick up the banner here, because this has to happen.”

Wisconsin was not the only state, however, to face attempts by fake electors to overturn their state’s election results in the 2020 presidential election. Republicans in six other states that Trump lost participated in the scheme: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico and Pennsylvania.

Last month, 16 people were charged by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) for their attempts to change the state’s election results. 

“They weren’t the duly elected and qualified electors, and each of the defendants knew it,” Nessel said in a video announcing the charges. “They carried out these actions with the hope and belief that the electoral votes of Michigan’s 2020 election would be awarded to the candidate of their choosing, instead of the candidate that Michigan voters actually chose.”

Eight fake electors also received immunity deals in Georgia in May in an investigation there into 2020 election meddling. The whole group of 16 met about a month after the election at the state Capitol and signed a certificate saying Trump won the election and that they were Georgia’s “duly elected and qualified” electors. 

Evers’s argument comes just days after the former president was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges related to his efforts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election.

The Associated Press contributed.