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Earlier this month, President Donald Trump quietly pardoned 77 people across the country who participated in the fake electors scheme of 2020, the wildly illegal attempt to subvert election results in battleground states that Joe Biden won and instead declare Trump the winner. That scheme did not work, and despite his best efforts to erase Jan. 6, Trump’s latest pardon may not either. Many of the people “pardoned” by Trump are still facing state charges since presidential pardons don’t apply to state crimes.
U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin announced the fake elector pardons on X, sharing photos of the proclamation that was signed by Trump on Nov. 7. It mentions names not heard in a while, like Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman, and Kenneth Chesebro, alongside other local Republicans who helped execute the scheme. Curiously, the proclamation is phrased as an “unconditional pardon” for folks connected with the 2020 presidential election, “whether or not recognized by any State or State official.”
Now, at least five states that were subjected to the fake electors scheme still have ongoing criminal cases against folks listed on the president’s pardon list. Many of the cases have been stymied by appeals, and broadly seem to have lost their steam since the ringleader of the entire enterprise went on to become president again and managed to thwart two of his own federal criminal indictments. Nevertheless, many of these states’ attorneys general haven’t outright dropped their cases; in fact, just days after Martin’s announcement, the Nevada Supreme Court revived a criminal case against six fake electors who appeared on the president’s pardon list.
Here is what we know about each of the active criminal cases against the 2020 fake electors and those who orchestrated the plan on Trump’s behalf.
Nevada
In late 2023, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford first announced felony charges against six local Republicans for signing and submitting a fake certificate certifying Trump won Nevada in the 2020 election. All of them pleaded not guilty, and at one point the case was dismissed, but Ford, a Democrat currently running for governor, has managed to keep it alive.
The six defendants challenged Ford’s indictment by arguing it was filed in the wrong venue. The attorney general brought the case before a grand jury in Clark County, home to Las Vegas—the largest and most Democratic-leaning city in Nevada—but they believed it should have been done in Carson City or Reno, northern Nevada cities where the defendants first signed the fake certificate certifying Trump won Nevada. District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus agreed and dismissed the indictment last year.
The attorney general appealed up to the Nevada Supreme Court but also refiled a nearly identical case in northern Nevada “as a preemptive measure to ensure that the statute of limitations on this charge does not lapse.” However, on Nov. 13, the Nevada Supreme Court finally issued a 6–0 decision overruling Holthus. The justices concluded that Ford was correct in filing his case in Clark County because the charged offenses were not technically complete until the fake electors’ certificate was received by a federal court, located in Las Vegas.
Ford vowed to pick up where he left off with his first indictment, though it’s not clear when it will go to trial.
Georgia
The bigger conspiracy case against the ringleaders of Trump’s electors plan, taking place in Georgia, is not going nearly as well as the Nevada case. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis charged Trump and 18 of his allies, including Rudy Giuliani, Meadows, and Chesebro, with felony racketeering in an elaborate criminal indictment in 2023. But by early 2024, bombshell accusations came out accusing Willis of ethics violations which ultimately stopped the case from moving forward.
Shortly after Willis announced the indictment, she was on a roll, successfully securing guilty pleas from major players in the fake electors scheme including Ellis, Powell, and Chesebro. But in January 2024 her investigation hit a major road bump when Michael Roman, a defendant charged in Willis’ indictment, filed a motion to dismiss the case after accusing the DA of having a personal relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. Willis admitted this was true, and other defendants in the case immediately piled on to join Roman’s motion. It led to months of contentious legal fights that prevented the case from moving forward, and eventually, by December 2024, Georgia’s Court of Appeals ruled that Willis must be disqualified from prosecuting her election interference case “due to a significant appearance of impropriety.”
The case shifted to Georgia’s Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council, which was responsible for finding Willis’ replacement. It spent the better part of 2025 struggling to find another district attorney willing to take on the politically fraught cause, until Peter Skandalakis, executive director of the PAC, decided to take the case himself. In a statement announcing his decision last week, Skandalakis acknowledged the significant publicity this case has received and said, “My only objective is to ensure that this case is handled properly, fairly, and with full transparency discharging my duties without fear, favor, or affection.”
It’s not yet clear how Skandalakis will proceed; he could choose to revive Willis’ original indictment or drop the case. However, back in 2022 as Willis was still investigating Georgia’s fake electors, she was considering bringing charges against then-state Sen. Burt Jones. He immediately filed a motion seeking to disqualify Willis because she had hosted a fundraiser for Jones’ Democratic opponent in the 2022 race for lieutenant governor of Georgia. In a decision that was pretty shocking, a judge ruled in favor of Jones, blocking Willis from questioning Jones.
Following a similar procedure, the PAC was brought in to find a new prosecutor, and Skandalakis ultimately assigned himself the investigation. He decided Jones should not be criminally charged for his role in overturning Georgia’s 2020 election results for Trump.
Arizona
The fate of Arizona’s fake electors indictment is in the hands of Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes, who has been locked in a yearlong legal battle over a technicality about how the case was presented to a grand jury.
Mayes first brought a fake electors indictment in April 2024, charging 11 Arizona Republicans with felony fraud, forgery, and conspiracy. The defendants argued their actions were allowable under the Electoral Count Act, a legal theory they alleged prosecutors did not present to a grand jury when securing an indictment. By May, a judge agreed and ordered the case go back to a grand jury for consideration, but Mayes appealed the ruling.
However, the Arizona Court of Appeals declined to intervene in this case, so now Mayes must decide by Friday whether to appeal further up to the Arizona Supreme Court. “We’re still in the process of doing all the analysis that goes into a filing like this in this case, but I continue to be very, very committed to this case,” Mayes told local media this month. “I don’t think there is anything more important than standing up for our democracy than making sure that no one, regardless of who they are, attempts to undermine an election.”
If Mayes decides not to appeal to the state Supreme Court, it would pave the way for the grand jury indictment to be dropped. And if she does appeal but the high court rules against her, she’ll be faced with a similar decision: drop the case or seek a new grand jury indictment. At the same time, Mayes is running for reelection this year.
Wisconsin
Not all of the people who posed as fake electors in Wisconsin’s 2020 election were criminally charged; instead Attorney General Josh Kaul focused on the three architects of the plan: Roman, Chesebro, and Jim Troupis, a longtime GOP attorney. The case had been tied up in appeals as the defendants tried to have it dismissed, but back in August a judge rejected the request.
The judge ruled in August that defendants in this case tried to dispute the facts alleged in the indictment, something meant to be resolved at trial, and did not merit dismissal of the entire case. Meanwhile, Kaul, a Democrat, is currently running for reelection, and it’s not yet clear what next step he will take in this fake electors case.
