Eleven Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely stating that Donald Trump defeated Joe Biden in Arizona in the 2020 presidential election were charged Wednesday with conspiracy, fraud and forgery, becoming the fourth state to file charges against “false voters”.
The eleven people who had been appointed as Arizona’s Republican electors gathered in Phoenix on December 14, 2020, to sign a certificate stating that they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and asserting that Trump had carried the state. The document was then sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.
Seven other people were charged, but their names were removed from the records released by Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes. His office said the names would be released once charges were filed against them.
Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes. Of the eight lawsuits that unsuccessfully challenged his victory in the state, one was filed by the 11 Republicans who would later sign the certificate declaring Trump the winner. A few days after this lawsuit was dismissed, they participated in the signing of the certificate.
The charges in Arizona follow a series of indictments against bogus voters in Nevada, Michigan and Georgia.
The eleven people who had been appointed as Arizona’s Republican electors gathered in Phoenix on December 14, 2020 to sign a certificate stating that they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and claimed that Trump had won the state in the first place. 2020 elections. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted to social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was then sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored.
Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes. Of the eight lawsuits that unsuccessfully challenged Biden’s victory in Arizona, one was filed by the 11 Republicans who would later sign the certificate declaring Trump the winner in the state.
Their lawsuit asked a judge to decertify the results that gave Biden his victory in Arizona and block the state from sending those results to the Electoral College. In dismissing the case, U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa said the Republicans lacked a legal basis, waited too long to present their case and “failed to provide the court with factual support for their allegations.” extraordinary.”
A few days after the dismissal of this lawsuit, the 11 Republicans participated in the signing of the certificate.
The charges in Arizona follow a series of indictments against bogus voters in other states. In December, a Nevada grand jury indicted six Republicans on charges of offering a false instrument for filing and using a false instrument in connection with false election certificates. They pleaded not guilty.
In July, Michigan’s attorney general filed charges of forgery and conspiracy to commit election fraud against 16 bogus Republican voters. One of them had his charges dropped after entering into a cooperation agreement and the other 15 defendants pleaded not guilty.
Three fake voters were also indicted in Georgia alongside Trump and others in a sweeping indictment accusing them of participating in a massive scheme to illegally overturn the results of the presidential election. They pleaded not guilty.
In Wisconsin, 10 Republicans posing as electors settled a civil lawsuit, admitting their actions were part of an effort to overturn Biden’s victory. There are no known criminal investigations in Wisconsin.
Trump was also indicted in federal court in August on election fraud charges. The indictment says that when Trump failed to persuade state officials to illegally swing the election in his favor, he and his Republican allies began recruiting a list of fake voters in the states of the battlefield – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. — to sign certificates falsely declaring that he, not Biden, had won their states.
In early January, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the state’s five Republican electors could not be prosecuted under current law. In New Mexico and Pennsylvania, fake voters added a caveat stating that the certificate of election was submitted in case they were later recognized as duly elected and qualified voters. No charges have been filed in Pennsylvania.
In Arizona, Mayes’ predecessor, Republican Mark Brnovich, led an investigation into the 2020 election, but allegations of fake voters were not part of that review, according to Mayes’ office.
In another election-related case brought by Mayes’ office, two Republican officials in a rural Arizona county who delayed reporting 2022 general election results face criminal charges. A grand jury indicted Cochise County Supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby in November on one count each of conspiracy and interference with an election official. Both have pleaded not guilty.
The Republicans charged are Kelli Ward, state GOP chair from 2019 until early 2023; State Senator Jake Hoffman; Tyler Bowyer, an executive with the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA who serves on the Republican National Committee; State Sen. Anthony Kern, who was photographed in restricted areas outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack and is now running for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District seat; Greg Safsten, former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party; energy industry executive James Lamon, who lost a 2022 Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat; Robert Montgomery, 2020 Cochise County Republican Committee Chairman; Gila County Republican Precinct Committeeman Samuel Moorhead; Nancy Cottle, who in 2020 served as the first vice president of the Arizona Federation of Republican Women; Loraine Pellegrino, president of the Ahwatukee Republican Women; and Michael Ward, an osteopathic physician married to Kelli Ward.
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Associated Press writers Kate Brumback in Atlanta and Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.
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