Fake Electors Plot: Cases, Pardons, Disbarments, and the ECRA

The fake electors plot was a coordinated effort by Donald Trump’s campaign and allies to overturn the 2020 presidential election by assembling 84 Republicans across seven states Joe Biden had won — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — and having them sign certificates on December 14, 2020, falsely declaring themselves the “duly elected and qualified” electors for Trump.¹ The scheme produced a federal indictment of Trump, criminal cases in five states, four Georgia plea deals, multiple disbarments, a rewrite of federal election law, and in November 2025, sweeping presidential pardons for 77 participants. Years on, nearly every criminal case has been dismissed, dropped, or stalled, and no fake elector has been convicted at trial.

What Happened on December 14, 2020

Every contested state had already certified its results for Biden by that date, and no court had disturbed those results.² Trump supporters nevertheless gathered at or near state capitols to sign documents claiming to be their state’s rightful presidential electors. In Michigan, some participants planned to “hide overnight” inside the Capitol building; in Georgia, they told security guards they were there to meet with state senators.³

Campaign operatives then transmitted the certificates to the National Archives and Congress by registered mail or hand delivery. The Archives classified them as “unofficial Certificates submitted by alternate electors,” and internal correspondence at the Office of the Federal Register labeled some filings “False Certificate of Votes.”⁴ The documents lacked governors’ signatures, state seals, and certificates of ascertainment required by federal law. An Arizona attorney working with the campaign wrote in an email that the votes were “fake” and “not legal under federal law” because they lacked the governor’s signature.¹

The New Mexico and Pennsylvania certificates differed from the rest in one way that would later matter for prosecutors: they included conditional language stating the votes should only be counted if a court later found the signatories to be legitimate electors. The Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin certificates carried no such caveat.⁵

Who Designed and Ran the Scheme

The legal theory came from Kenneth Chesebro, an outside advisor to the Trump campaign. In a November 18, 2020 memo to campaign attorney James Troupis, Chesebro argued that Republican electors in contested states should meet on December 14 to sign “contingent” ballots preserving the campaign’s options during litigation. A December 9 memo expanded the plan to additional states, and a December 13 memo argued that Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally disregard Biden’s certified electors by pointing to “conflicting” slates. Chesebro himself described the plan as “slightly problematic” in Michigan, “somewhat dicey” in Georgia and Pennsylvania, and “very problematic” in Nevada.³ Attorney John Eastman built on this foundation, writing memos that cast the vice president as the “ultimate arbiter” of electoral disputes.

Senior campaign lawyers Justin Clark and Matthew Morgan stepped away after the Supreme Court rejected the campaign’s litigation in mid-December, considering the scheme legally baseless.³ White House Counsel Pat Cipollone’s office warned Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Rudy Giuliani that the plan was “not legally sound.”¹ Giuliani took over the operation, with Chesebro as his primary legal aide and campaign operative Michael Roman running an “Electors Whip Operation” to recruit participants.

The House January 6 Committee concluded Trump personally oversaw the effort. Days before December 14, he called RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and connected her with Eastman, who explained the importance of the RNC helping “gather these contingent electors.”³ McDaniel testified she called Trump back to confirm RNC staff were already involved.⁶ She has not faced criminal charges. Meadows later received immunity from Special Counsel Jack Smith and told federal investigators he had repeatedly warned Trump that fraud allegations were “baseless.”⁷

The Federal Case Against Trump

On August 1, 2023, a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. charged Trump with four felonies tied to the plot: conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.⁸ The indictment alleged Trump sought to “manufacture fraudulent slates of presidential electors” as part of a broader effort to overturn the election.

After Trump won the 2024 election, Smith moved to dismiss. On November 25, 2024, Judge Tanya Chutkan dismissed the case without prejudice, citing Department of Justice policy against prosecuting a sitting president.⁹ The statute of limitations is expected to expire before Trump leaves office, making revival of the case extremely unlikely.

Where the State Cases Stand

Criminal charges were filed in five states. None has produced a trial conviction of a fake elector.

Georgia

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis brought a racketeering indictment in August 2023 against Trump and 18 co-defendants, including fake electors David Shafer, Shawn Still, and Cathleen Latham. Four defendants took plea deals. Chesebro pleaded guilty on October 20, 2023 to a single felony count of conspiring to file false documents, receiving five years of probation, $5,000 in restitution, and 100 hours of community service.¹⁰ Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors; Jenna Ellis pleaded guilty to one felony count of aiding and abetting false statements.¹¹ At least eight of the 16 Georgia fake electors reached immunity deals.¹²

Willis was then disqualified in late 2024 over an improper relationship with a fellow prosecutor, a ruling the Georgia Supreme Court declined to disturb in September 2025.¹³ The case went to Peter Skandalakis of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, who moved to dismiss. On November 26, 2025, Judge Scott McAfee granted the dismissal, with Skandalakis concluding the fake electors “genuinely and sincerely believed that their actions were a lawful component of the election contest process.”¹⁴

Michigan

Attorney General Dana Nessel charged 16 fake electors in July 2023 with eight felony counts each. Charges against one defendant were dropped in exchange for cooperation. On September 9, 2025, District Court Judge Kristen Simmons dismissed charges against all 15 remaining defendants, finding the prosecution had failed to show criminal intent. “This is a fraud case, and we have to prove intent,” Simmons said. “And I don’t believe there’s evidence sufficient to prove intent.”¹⁵ Nessel announced on March 9, 2026 that she would not appeal, ending the prosecution.¹⁶

Arizona

Arizona’s case was the broadest, with 18 defendants including 11 fake electors and seven Trump aides such as Giuliani, Meadows, and Boris Epshteyn. Three defendants resolved their cases early, with one pleading guilty to a misdemeanor.¹⁷ The case stalled after defense attorneys showed the grand jury had not been presented with the text of the Electoral Count Act. The Arizona Supreme Court denied Attorney General Kris Mayes’s appeal in June 2026.¹⁸ On June 18, 2026, Mayes dismissed the indictment but said she intends to seek a new one from a fresh grand jury.¹⁹ Meadows is separately arguing he is immune from state prosecution because his conduct fell within his chief of staff duties, a claim a federal district court has rejected.²⁰

Nevada

A grand jury indicted six Nevada Republicans in 2023 on forgery-related charges, including state GOP Chairman Michael McDonald and Republican National Committeeman Jim DeGraffenreid.²¹ A lower court dismissed the case in June 2024 on jurisdictional grounds, but the Nevada Supreme Court unanimously reversed in November 2025, finding Clark County was the proper venue.²² The Clark County judge has asked prosecutors to brief whether there is sufficient evidence of “intent to defraud,” with a hearing set for April 2026.²³

Wisconsin

Wisconsin took a different route. The 10 individuals who signed the certificates were not criminally charged. Instead, they settled a civil lawsuit, Penebaker v. Hitt, in December 2023, acknowledging that their false electoral votes “were used as part of an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election and disrupt the peaceful transfer of presidential powers,” affirming Biden’s win, and agreeing never to serve as presidential electors again.²⁴

Criminal charges went to the organizers. Attorney General Josh Kaul charged Troupis, Chesebro, and Roman with 11 felony forgery counts each, alleging the three defrauded the 10 electors about how the certificates would be used.²⁵ All three pleaded not guilty in Dane County Circuit Court on June 16, 2026. Each count carries up to six years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Defense motions seek to move the trial and to dismiss one count based on Trump’s federal pardons. It is considered one of the last active prosecutions of its kind.²⁶

New Mexico and Pennsylvania

No charges have been filed in either state. Officials concluded that the conditional language in both states’ certificates prevented the documents from meeting the forgery standard, and New Mexico’s attorney general added that state forgery laws did not reach the signing of false electoral certificates.²⁷¹²

Trump’s November 2025 Pardons

In November 2025, President Trump issued full and unconditional federal pardons to 77 people connected to the fake electors effort and the broader attempt to overturn the 2020 election. The recipients included all 11 Arizona fake electors, all 16 Michigan fake electors, all six Nevada defendants, several Wisconsin electors, and the central organizers and attorneys: Giuliani, Meadows, Chesebro, Eastman, Troupis, Roman, Powell, and Ellis.²⁸

The pardons reach only federal offenses. They do not affect any state-level case.²⁹ Attorneys for Troupis and Roman have asked the Wisconsin judge to drop one of their 11 felony counts based on the pardons, a motion still under consideration.³⁰

Disbarments

Several of the lawyers lost their licenses. Rudy Giuliani was disbarred in New York in July 2024 and in Washington, D.C. in September 2024.³¹ Kenneth Chesebro was suspended in New York in October 2024 and disbarred there in 2026 based on his Georgia felony conviction.³² John Eastman was effectively suspended in California starting March 2024 after a disciplinary trial; the California Supreme Court finalized his permanent disbarment on April 15, 2026. Eastman has said he will challenge the ruling before the U.S. Supreme Court.³³

The Law Congress Passed in Response

Congress passed the Electoral Count Reform Act (ECRA) in 2022 as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, specifically to close the gaps the scheme tried to exploit. The ECRA states that the vice president’s role in counting electoral votes is strictly “ministerial,” with “no power to solely determine, accept, reject, or otherwise adjudicate or resolve disputes over the proper list of electors.” It requires state executives to certify results at least six days before the Electoral College meets, directs Congress to treat that certification as “conclusive” absent a court order, raises the threshold for congressional objections from one member of each chamber to one-fifth, and limits objections to two grounds: that electors were not “lawfully certified” or that a vote was not “regularly given.”³⁴ The law did not create new federal criminal penalties aimed specifically at submitting false electoral certificates.

1
Just Security. Timeline of the False Electors
2
Source NM. Scope of New Mexico’s Fake Elector Scheme Detailed in Jan. 6 Committee Report
3
GovInfo. House January 6 Committee Final Report, Chapter 3
4
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6
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7
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8
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9
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10
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11
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12
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13
Lawfare. Testimony Heard by the Trump Grand Jury in Fulton County
14
Courthouse News. Georgia Prosecutor Drops Last Remaining Criminal Case Against Trump
15
NPR. Michigan Fake Electors Trump Charges Dropped
16
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17
ABC 12. Arizona Prosecutors Dismissing Fake Elector Case but Vow to Seek New Indictment
18
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Click Orlando. Arizona Prosecutors Dismissing Fake Elector Case but Vow to Seek New Indictment
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21
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23
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24
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25
AP. Former Trump Attorneys, Aides Plead Not Guilty to Wisconsin Fake Elector Felony Charges
26
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27
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28
News From the States. Here’s the List of Newly Pardoned Trump Fake Electors and Other Allies
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AZ Mirror. Trump Pardons 11 Arizona Fake Electors
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WPR. Troupis, Chesebro, Roman False Electors Arraigned in Dane County
31
Democracy Docket. Ex-Trump Attorney Kenneth Chesebro Suspended From Practicing Law in New York
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The Hill. Kenneth Chesebro Disbarred in New York
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States United. Eastman Disbarred in California
34
Protect Democracy. Understanding the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022