Arrests and criminal prosecutions are proving to be an effective way of deterring Republicans from participating in a potential Trump attack on the 2024 election.
In the past few months, 25 of those 84 electors have been charged with felonies, such as forgery, false statements, and filing false documents. Ten more have agreed as part of a lawsuit settlement to not serve as electors in any election in which Trump is on the ballot. And 13 others in Georgia have been labeled “unindicted co-conspirators.”
The publicity surrounding those investigations, and the specter of tarnished reputations and heavy legal costs, are likely to discourage future Trump electors — should the former president secure the GOP nomination next year — from casting votes for him in a state where Biden is again declared the winner, many Republicans said.
While the fake elector scheme was novel in 2020, with many pro-Trump electors claiming they didn’t fully understand how their votes would be used, those who engage in similar activities in the future could find it harder to claim they didn’t know they could be held criminally liable. Another discouraging force: a new federal law that tightened the rules surrounding the counting of electoral college votes every four years.
Multiple states have sent the message to Republicans not to mess with their elections. Investigations in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nevada and the criminal charges against Trump’s fake electors in several of those states are having the same impact that the 1/6 prosecutions have had on Trump’s calls for political violence.
Republicans have shown that even though they support Donald Trump, the vast majority of them aren’t willing to ruin their lives and go to jail for him.
The Electoral Count Reform Act has made it virtually impossible for Trump to replicate the 2020 fake elector, but if his campaign is thinking about pulling anything else, they are likely to have a difficult time recruiting co-conspirators at the Republican state and local levels.
Donald Trump is using the same strategy that he relied on in 2016 and 2020, but his support does not appear to be as passionate within the Republican Party. After the 1/6 attack, lawmakers took steps to change the law.
The MAGAs have realized that when they follow Trump’s order, they go to jail, while he goes to golf, and as the nation heads into 2024, many of them no longer are willing to take the fall for Donald Trump.
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