2 real Wis. electors sue slate of fake GOP electors
Suit seeks damages from 10 Republicans to prevent trying again
MADISON – Two of Wisconsin’s presidential electors filed a sweeping lawsuit Tuesday seeking to fine 10 Republicans who posed as members of the Electoral College after Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden.
The Democrats who brought the lawsuit in Dane County Circuit Court are also seeking to punish two attorneys who worked on the effort. They want a judge to award all involved up to $200,000 apiece in damages to ensure the losing side in future elections doesn’t file official-looking paperwork with Congress claiming to be the winner.
The lawsuit appears to be the first of its kind in the country. More litigation is possible because Republicans in six other states Donald Trump lost engaged in similar behavior after the November 2020 election.
Two months ago, Wisconsin’s bipartisan Elections Commission unanimously dismissed a complaint over the fake electors after it found the Republicans had not violated any laws the commission oversees. That case has been appealed.
The new lawsuit — brought by some of the same attorneys — seeks to go further by asking a judge to find the Republicans engaged in a conspiracy aimed at defrauding voters. The filing argues the Republicans helped fuel the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, when a pro-Trump mob tried to prevent Congress from finalizing Biden’s victory.
“Defendants’ actions helped lay the foundation for a nationwide scheme to override the results of the 2020 election, thereby setting an anti-democratic precedent that jeopardizes all future elections inside and outside the State,” attorney Jeffrey Mandell wrote.
Paul Farrow, the chairman of the state Republican Party, said the lawsuit was without merit.
“This frivolous lawsuit from a liberal group is yet another Democrat attempt to resurrect a baseless story from two years ago,” Farrow said in a statement. “Even the Wisconsin Elections Commission voted unanimously to not sanction anyone. Democrats have tried to use this event to distract from their abysmal record on election reform.”
Among the fake electors being sued are Bob Spindell, who also serves on the state Elections Commission, and Darryl Carlson, who is now working as the campaign manager for candidate for governor Kevin Nicholson.
Spindell said he did not expect the lawsuit to go anywhere. He said he was not surprised by the lawsuit and noted it was filed three days before the state Republican Party Convention.
“I think the whole thing is political
in nature,” he said of the lawsuit.
Biden beat Trump by about 21,000 votes in Wisconsin. Trump sought recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties, which confirmed Biden’s win. Trump sued and the state Supreme Court upheld the results on a 4-3 vote on Dec. 14, 2020.
Less than an hour later, Democrats met in the state Capitol to cast the state’s 10 electoral votes for Biden.
At the same time, the fake electors gathered in another part of the Capitol to fill out paperwork claiming Trump had won. They submitted their filings to Congress, the National Archives, a federal judge and Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette.
At the time, the fake electors said they held the meeting to ensure the state’s electoral votes were cast for Trump if a court later determined he was the true winner of the state.
The plan was spelled out after the election by attorney Kenneth Chesebro in a memo dated Nov. 18, 2020 — the same day Trump asked for recounts in Dane and Milwaukee counties.
Chesebro sent the memo to Jim Troupis, the attorney who oversaw Trump’s post-election legal strategy in Wisconsin. It’s unclear whether Chesebro worked for Trump or someone else.
Chesebro sent a second memo on the matter on Dec. 9, 2020, after state officials certified Biden as the victor in Wisconsin.
The filings from the fake electors in Wisconsin and elsewhere helped Trump and his allies argue the results were in dispute as they tried to prevent Congress from finalizing them.
Troupis, Chesebro and the fake electors in Wisconsin “knew that their actions were part of a broader scheme to overturn the election,” Mandell wrote in Tuesday’s court filing.
The lawsuit argues the fake electors and the attorneys violated laws that determine who can participate in Electoral College meetings and bar people from acting as if they hold public offices they don’t actually hold. It contends the false electors illegally interfered with official proceedings, counterfeited public records, defrauded the public and engaged in a conspiracy to try to get the wrong electors recognized by Congress.
Those bringing the suit are asking a judge to block the fake electors from engaging in similar activity in the future and from ever serving as electors. They are seeking to have them pay a variety of fines and damages, noting that one statute would allow a judge to make each fake elector pay up to $200,000.
The lawsuit was brought by two of the state’s actual electors, Khary Penebaker and Mary Arnold, as well as Bonnie Joesph, a voter who objects to the actions of the fake electors.
They are represented by Law Forward, a liberal nonprofit law firm focused on voting issues; Stafford Rosenbaum, a Madison law firm; and the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.
The earlier challenge to the fake electors was brought by Law Forward and Stafford Rosenbaum. Mandell is president of Law Forward and a partner at Stafford Rosenbaum.
The U.S. Department of Justice has said it is looking into Republicans who claimed to be electors in states Trump lost.
The U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 account subpoenaed would-be electors from around the country, including two from Wisconsin . The fake electors met with investigators privately.
As in Wisconsin, Republicans in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada signed documents purporting to be electors. Republicans in New Mexico and Pennsylvania filled out paperwork saying they should be considered electors if courts found Trump had won their states.
The dispute over the fake electors comes as Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly push to review the election. Last year they gave former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman a taxpayer-funded budget of $676,000 to oversee the review.
Gableman recommended in March that the state Legislature revoke the state’s electoral votes for Biden even though his attorney and other experts have said that’s legally impossible. Legislative leaders met with Gableman last week and said they believe he no longer supports trying to decertify the election.