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WHY
IT'S IMPORTANT
Wednesday's actions marked the latest legal developments in a
2020 plan to persuade Republican-controlled legislatures in
election battleground states to name their own Trump-friendly
electors.
The indictments made Nevada the third state, behind Michigan and
Georgia, to bring charges against Republicans who served as fake
electors in 2020. In Wisconsin's civil lawsuit, the Republican
electors admitted the effort to overturn election results and
acknowledged Biden's victory as legitimate.
In U.S. presidential elections, voters do not directly pick who
goes to the White House. Instead, their ballots determine each
state's slate of electors, who select the president in a process
mandated by the Constitution.
CONTEXT
Trump, 77, the frontrunner in the race for the 2024 Republican
presidential nomination, pushed the false claims of a stolen
election that led to the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S.
Capitol by his supporters.
Special Counsel Jack Smith's federal indictment accusing Trump
of efforts to overturn the 2020 election included a charge that
the then-president and his allies sought slates of phony
electors to support his false claims that he beat Biden.
KEY QUOTES
"Fake electors schemes in Nevada, Wisconsin, and Michigan may
not involve household names, but they could produce important
witnesses and documents for Jack Smith, and bring accountability
for abuse of power in their states," University of Michigan law
professor Barbara McQuade said on social media platform X on
Thursday.
"We cannot allow attacks on democracy to go unchallenged,"
Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford said in a statement.
WHAT'S NEXT
Trump and some supporters continue to embrace false claims of
widespread election fraud that were rejected by multiple courts,
state reviews and members of Trump's own administration. The
legal proceedings involving electors could buoy prosecutors in
some of the four criminal cases Trump faces as he seeks to
challenge Biden in November.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey; editing by Jonathan
Oatis)
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