Four years ago, the Michigan state Capitol police barred them from even entering the building.
Now, Hank Choate, a 74-year-old farmer from Cement City, broke into a little celebratory jig on the state Senate floor, grinning widely as his fellow electors and GOP members applauded.
“I don't know if I can really put it into words,” Choate said about casting one of Michigan’s 2024 electoral college votes for President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday.
“I said all along leading up to Election Day that I know that the sun will come up tomorrow. And on November 6, that sun came out bright and clear.”
Back in 2020, Choate and his fellow Republican elector nominees met in the basement of the Republican party headquarters, where attorneys working with the Trump campaign had gathered them to sign a certificate falsely claiming then-President Trump won the 2020 election.
The elector nominees then tried to bring that certificate to the Capitol (where state law says Michigan electors must convene to cast their votes) but were blocked by police.
Now, eight felony charges and one presidential election cycle later, six of the original 16 so-called “fake electors” from 2020 are back, having been renominated to be the GOP electors again in 2024.
And this time, Trump’s win means they’re the real deal, from taking an oath of office to smiling for selfies with family and friends.
Former GOP party co-chair Meshawn Maddock said realized she put on “the same coat I was wearing when I stood outside the Capitol in the infamous photos when we were trying to get in.”
“It is very emotional, I didn't expect it to be,” Maddock said. “When my congressional district encouraged me to run for [this electoral nominee] office, I thought it was kind of funny. I understood sort of the pun of it, of bringing a bunch of us back. And I was honored that they did that. But actually, when I got up today on the rostrum, I did get really emotional.”
Just last week, Maddock announced she’s running for state party chair again. And this time, she said, fundraising will be better than it was in 2020, following Trump’s loss and the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“Donors were upset,” she said. “Delegates were upset. Republican leaders were upset. And so it made it very difficult to go out there and fundraise…Now we're at a point where I have very important people calling me, reaching out in support that will be able to write big checks. And it's because they all want to be on the Trump train. Trump won, and now everybody is on his side.”
What’s happening with the criminal case?
All 16 of the 2020 GOP elector nominees have pleaded not guilty to the charges of election forgery filed against them last year by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. (One of the defendants, James Renner, took a plea deal in exchange for his testimony.) Several defense attorneys argue their clients were misled by Trump campaign attorneys, and believed the certificates they were signing would only be used if Trump successfully contested the election results.
Instead, the certificate was submitted to the National Archives, along with similar unofficial certificates from several other states. Prosecutors say it was part of a larger plot to subvert the 2020 election results, which culminated in the January 6 attack.
“The losing elector nominees met on the day the legitimate electors were required to meet, December 14, 2020, and signed three fraudulent certificates of vote claiming that they were Michigan’s presidential electors and casting fraudulent electoral votes for Donald Trump and Michael Pence,” the AG’s team said in a brief filed last month.
“Before signing the fraudulent certificates, the losing elector nominees were informed that the document would be presented at the Michigan Capitol later that day,” the brief reads. “Because the fraudulent electors knew that the fraudulent certificate was falsely made, forged, or counterfeit, knew that it would be presented that day, and signed it anyway, there is probable cause that they are each guilty of their charged offenses.”
Preliminary exams in the case have wrapped up, and defense attorneys are filing their final briefs over the next few months, before a district judge decides whether prosecutors have presented sufficient evidence to bring the case to trial. (Because it’s a state case, President-elect Trump won’t be able to pardon the defendants, attorneys said.)
But Choate says he’s feeling hopeful. “What I can tell you is, after going through seven consecutive days of preliminary hearing, and listening to the [state’s] investigator present his six-page sworn affidavit, a jury of our peers, if it gets that far, will determine us as innocent.”
