Republicans bring back fake electors in battlegrounds
PoliticoAll told, at least 1 in 5 prospective Trump electors from battleground states this year had some connection to the scheme to overturn the 2020 election. There’s little reason to believe that Trump or his allies would attempt to reenact the false elector scheme, given the prolonged criminal proceedings against the fake electors and the maturation of the “Stop the Steal” movement. After Trump lost the 2020 election, he hoped his vice president, Mike Pence, would claim unprecedented power to count the votes cast by the false electors from states where Joe Biden won the popular vote. The GOP slates of elector nominees also include proponents of debunked conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen — true believers in the election denialism movement that now runs rampant within the Republican Party. Some of this year’s prospective GOP electors have contributed to the social media frenzy that has fueled baseless election security claims, like Wisconsin state Rep. Angie Sapik, who was attacked by Democrats in her 2022 run for the state legislature over since-deleted tweets linked to Sapik where she claimed the 2020 election was rigged and defended the events of the Jan. 6 insurrection.