Arizona fake electors may finally learn what happens when they try to steal an election
At long last (and it’s about time), Arizona’s fake electors are about to find out it’s not nice to try to steal a presidential election.
Sens. Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern, along with Turning Point Action’s Tyler Bowyer, former Arizona GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward and the seven other fake electors, have been indicted on nine felony charges each of fraud, forgery and conspiracy.
The indictment also lists charges against the seven others, still to be named.
But it’s clear from the descriptions that the list likely includes Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s then-chief of staff Mark Meadows, attorney John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Boris Epshteyn, Christina Bobb and Mark Roman, who served as the Trump campaign’s director of election day operations.
In case you’re wondering, Donald Trump wasn’t indicted. He’s listed as one of five unindicted co-conspirators.
2 major jolts hit Republicans in 1 day
“In Arizona, and the United States, the people elected Joseph Biden as President on November 3, 2020,” the indictment says.
“Unwilling to accept this fact, Defendants and unindicted coconspirators schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency to keep Unindicted Coconspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters. This scheme would have deprived Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted.”
That jolt you just felt was the political landscape roiling in Arizona as Republicans take their second haymaker of the day — the first being the trampling of House Republicans as three of their members joined with Democrats to overturn the state’s 1864 abortion ban.
And now, the long-awaited indictment in the fake elector scheme.
Did I mention it’s about time that these fine self-professed patriots who tried to steal Arizona’s vote in the 2020 election finally get their day in court … to explain how they were trying to make America great again by making democracy a thing of the past?
Mayes investigated fake electors for months
Attorney General Kris Mayes vowed during the 2022 campaign to investigate Arizona’s fake electors after her Republican predecessor Mark Brnovich neglected to do so, busy as he was chasing after Trump’s approval for his ill-fated U.S. Senate campaign.
The Democratic attorney general assigned a team of prosecutors to the investigation last May, and for months it has appeared she’s been inching ever closer to indictments. Arizona joins Georgia, Michigan and Nevada in bringing criminal charges against its fake electors.
Arizona’s 11 Trump “electors” didn’t just spontaneously and on a whim decide to meet up at state GOP headquarters on Dec. 14, 2020, and declare themselves “duly election and qualified” to cast Arizona’s presidential vote for Trump.
This, as the same wild idea just coincidentally occurred to Republicans in six other swing states won by Biden.
This, as a group of 30 Republican legislators at the Arizona Capitol were signing a resolution calling on Vice President Mike Pence and Congress to accept Arizona’s “alternate” electoral votes — a letter that then-state Rep. Mark Finchem hand-carried to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5, 2021, and delivered to U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs.
In all, 29 incoming and outgoing Republican legislators signed that request, calling it “A Joint Resolution of the 54th Legislature” and attaching the state seal so it would look official.
It's time to answer for this election scheme
This was a carefully planned scheme — from the seeds of doubt deeply planted to erode trust in our elections to the fake electors who were part of a plot to steal the vote in Arizona and other swing states to the storming of the nation’s Capitol to stop Joe Biden from becoming president.
Arizona’s fake electors have mostly laid low since details of this scam on America have trickled out. Their enablers and supporters insist they were merely a backup plan, casting Arizona’s electoral votes for Trump in the event that lawsuits challenging the election were successful.
Payback? Fake elector uses his office to investigate Mayes
That might actually work if we were in Pennsylvania or New Mexico, where the Trump electors added that caveat to the official certifications they sent to Congress and the National Archives.
In New Mexico, the Trump electors signed “on the understanding that it might later be determined that [they] are the duly elected and qualified Electors.”
In Pennsylvania, they said their votes for Trump should count only “if, as a result of a final non-appealable court order or other proceeding prescribed by law, we are ultimately recognized as being the duly elected and qualified electors.”
But Arizona’s fake electors offered no such hedge. They signed documents simply declaring themselves “duly elected and qualified electors” and casting their votes for the guy who didn’t win.
It’s about time they had to answer for that.
Reach Roberts at [email protected]. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @LaurieRoberts or on Threads at @laurierobertsaz.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Fake electors charged in Arizona, and it's about darn time