More of Trump’s Fake Electors Go Free as Judge Tosses Charges
Fake electors in Michigan will no longer face trial despite signing a paper claiming Trump won the state in the 2020 election. (He didn’t.)

In a massive loss for election denialism accountability, the 15 Michigan electors who signed a document falsely stating that Donald Trump won their state in 2020 have now gotten off scot-free.
On December 14, 2020, 16 Michigan Republicans masquerading as “duly elected and qualified” electors gathered in the basement of the Michigan Republican Party headquarters and signed a certificate stating that Trump had won Michigan’s 16 Electoral College votes. The certificate was sent in to the National Archives. This was of course a lie, as Joe Biden won Michigan by three points. Nonetheless, their move was one of many similar stunts pulled by Trump supporters across the country, as they also submitted false certificates declaring his victory.
“We signed a blank piece of paper,” one of the electors, Michelle Lundgren, said. “And that’s all [I] can tell you.”
Each of the 16 electors except one, who reached an agreement with the state attorney general’s office, faced charges of forgery, conspiracy to commit election law forgery, and uttering and publishing.
“The false electors’ actions undermined the public’s faith in the integrity of our elections and, we believe, also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in 2023.
Now, five years later, Judge Kristen Simmons, appointed by Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, has thrown out their cases.
“This is a fraud case, and we have to prove intent, and I do not believe there is evidence sufficient to prove intent,” she told the courtroom on Tuesday.
Prosecutors reportedly had issues establishing that the electors actually knew what they were doing was against the law, as many of the defendants stated that they thought they were engaged in a “legitimate process” that night in December.
“Where’s the evidence of any intent that anybody had to commit to crime?” John Freeman, a lawyer for one of the electors, said in a hearing last year. “It’s all wishful thinking.… It’s a politically motivated witch hunt that has no basis in the evidence.”
Republican Women’s Federation of Michigan president Robyn Peake admitted that Simmons’s decision may have been influenced by the fact that Trump is back in office.
“There’s a possibility that they have been testing the political winds and how things have changed since Trump’s current term to see what is the public opinion and what is the tone of the United States at this point,” Peake said, according to The Detroit News. “We’ve seen a lot of changes in the last almost 12 months and I think the political tone right now is different in the United States than what it was.”