Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes will have to go back to a grand jury if she wants to continue her prosecution of the so-called "fake electors" who attempted to overturn Arizona’s 2020 election.
This, after the state Supreme Court said it won’t review a lower court ruling that sent it back to a grand jury last year — dealing a significant blow to the Democratic attorney general's case.
The case is one of several around the country that arose after the 2020 election when some allies of President Donald Trump tried to undermine election results that showed former President Joe Biden won. And many of those other cases are also hitting roadblocks.
The Show spoke more about it with Votebeat’s Sasha Hupka.
Full conversation
SASHA HUPKA: You actually have to go all the way back last year to a Maricopa County Supreme Court ruling, where a judge determined that the grand jury hadn't been properly instructed on a federal election law. And so, the judge ordered Mayes, take this back to a grand jury.
And as you might imagine, that would be a major blow to the case. And so, she pushed back on that. She attempted to appeal it to the Court of Appeals. They didn't do anything with it.
She then attempted to appeal it to the Arizona Supreme Court, and it essentially had been sitting there for months before we got this recent decision that the court wasn't going to review it.
And so, that means the lower court's ruling stands, and she does now have to take it back to a grand jury, which she says she will do and that she'll still continue to proceed with the case. But it is definitely a major blow.
LAUREN GILGER: Right. And she'd have to get reelected essentially to follow this through, it seems.
SASHA HUPKA: Yes. I think that this means the case likely isn't heading to a trial or seeing some type of resolution until maybe 2027, 2028, when you look at the timelines of what it takes to get a case like this through the courts. And obviously, she may no longer be serving as attorney general at that point if she doesn't win her election in November.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. OK. Back up very quickly for us, Sasha, and just remind us who these so-called fake electors are. This is 18 people, some pretty big names on this list, right?
SASHA HUPKA: Yes. And so, for what it's worth, not all 18 of them were fake electors. Some of them were allies of Donald Trump who sort of contributed to this effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in other ways.
But the fake electors component of them essentially signed paperwork attempting to falsely certify the state's electoral votes for Donald Trump when the state, in fact, voted for Joe Biden. That is who won the election in Arizona in 2020.
LAUREN GILGER: Right. And we saw this happen not just in Arizona, but in many states around the country, and we saw resulting prosecutions or attempts at prosecutions in many other states around the country as well. So, as we've watched this big blow to Mayes' case here in Arizona.
What's going on with all these cases around the country? Where do some of these other efforts stand, Sasha, to try to, you know, hold these folks accountable?
SASHA HUPKA: A lot of them are facing very serious challenges. We've seen in two states, in Georgia and in Michigan, that the cases either were dropped or are no longer being pursued.
In Nevada, the case is continuing forward, but recently it went before a judge in court, and she seemed very skeptical of the charges. She felt that it would have been very difficult for these fake electors there to actually affect any type of change on the 2020 presidential election results. And so, she's now taking some time to make a decision on the evidence. There's no resolution there yet, but certainly that doesn't bode well.
And then in some states like in Pennsylvania, prosecutors considered bringing charges but then never actually did.
LAUREN GILGER: That's interesting. Wisconsin is an interesting example, though, because it seems to be the one state where things are going relatively smoothly in this kind of prosecution.
SASHA HUPKA: Yes, it's continuing to move forward in Wisconsin. To my knowledge, I think it's the only state at this point that hasn't seen some type of setback or, I guess in the case of Nevada, judge skepticism.
There, they're currently preparing to arraign attorneys who had represented the fake electors in court. That's expected later this month. So, that case is continuing to move forward and perhaps has the best chance of actually going somewhere anytime soon.
LAUREN GILGER: What exactly are these fake electors being charged with? What's the alleged crime?
SASHA HUPKA: So, it depends on the state. There's a variety of things, but generally speaking, you're seeing fraud charges, forgery charges and things of that nature. Here in Arizona, they're being charged with several felonies.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So, this is obviously part of this broader effort around the country to try to hold folks accountable who, in various ways, tried to undermine the 2020 election, which was six years ago now.
I want to talk about what's happening in Colorado because that's a very interesting example of this. You have Tina Peters, who was not a fake elector, but was found guilty for charges basically related to her efforts to undermine the election there. Her sentence was commuted by their Democratic governor recently.
SASHA HUPKA: Yes, and I think that that case, although Tina Peters obviously isn't a fake elector, is very emblematic of what's happening right now around the country. You know, you saw Tina Peters had her sentence commuted, and within days, she was back on right-wing media making some of the same claims that led her to, you know, do what she did in the first place there.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. So, I want to ask about the broader picture, too, because I think a lot of folks will hear about the so-called fake electors or 2020 election interference and think, man, this is old news.
But obviously, we are heading up to another election, and there are lots of concerns that we will see similar things happen in the future.
SASHA HUPKA: I think that it gets to a fundamental question that speaks to where we are right now as a democratic society. Should there be a penalty for spreading misinformation about elections, for attempting to overturn election results? Is that something that should be penalized? If so, how should it be penalized?
I think we're just in a very unique place with it right now, and I understand the instinct to say it's been six years, but 2020 continues to resonate into our elections today in so many ways.
When you look at what's happening right now in Maricopa County — where top election officials are squabbling, and where really the main divide that was there from the get-go was that the county recorder was supported by Trump's allies and has kind of walked the line, you know, not entirely claiming election denialism but then also not entirely refuting it either, versus the board that, you know, became so famous for standing up to that in 2020. You know, it resonates in every corner of our state right now throughout a lot of different situations, and that's just one example. And so, I think it is still very important.
LAUREN GILGER: I heard someone say recently that they're watching the midterm elections basically to see, you know, are they fair, are they a normal, quote unquote, "American election cycle"? What are you watching for?
SASHA HUPKA: I am watching for so many things. But I think here on the local level, some of the big themes I see are certainly federal involvement or efforts to exert control over the elections here. That's going to be probably the big theme here of the 2026 cycle.
But then I also am looking for things that are just, I mean, they might sound mundane, but how well is the election administered, right? You know, are there technical issues?
I mean, all of these things are things that impact voters. And so, I try really hard to look at all of it, both like the political and maybe the more front page, headline-grabbing stuff versus the stuff that maybe does not feel like a headline right now, but that's actually going to be really important to voters' experience.
LAUREN GILGER: Sasha Hupka with Votebeat joining us. Sasha, thank you very much for coming in. Appreciate it.
SASHA HUPKA: Thank you.
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