This article is made possible through Spotlight PA’s collaboration with Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting. Sign up for Votebeat’s free newsletters here.
By Carter Walker of Votebeat
Five Pennsylvania Republicans who joined an alternate slate of electors for Donald Trump in 2020 will again serve as presidential electors in this year’s contest.
William “Bill” Bachenberg, Bernadette Comfort, Ash Khare, Pat Poprik, and Andrew Reilly are included on a list of electors submitted to the Pennsylvania Department of State by the GOP.
Those electors, along with 15 others, drew criticism after submitting their names as electors for Pennsylvania in December 2020 and casting votes for then-President Trump, even though Joe Biden won the state’s popular vote. But unlike similar groups of alternate or “fake” electors in other swing states in 2020, the Pennsylvania slate avoided legal repercussions because of a caveat they included in the certificate documenting their vote.
Of the five electors appearing again on this year’s slate, three who spoke to Votebeat and Spotlight PA indicated they would be open to doing the same this year if they felt there was a similar legal dispute over the results.
“I honestly believe any electors for either party would do that,” said Poprik, the head of the Bucks County Republican Committee.
Pennsylvania, like most states, allocates its presidential electors according to who wins the popular vote. This year, the winning candidate’s electors will meet Dec. 17 to cast their votes.
One elections expert said people who participated in a 2020 elector scheme shouldn’t be allowed to do so again this year.
“It is the voters who determine elections — not ‘fake electors’ who attempt to upend the results of a fair election,” said Lindsey Miller, director of strategic research at Informing Democracy, a nonprofit made up of lawyers, election experts, and researchers that focuses on vote-counting and certification.
“Those who participate in election fraud should be held accountable, not given another bite at the apple.”
Who are the electors who choose the president?
In the United States presidential election system, each state is represented by a certain number of electors based on its population. Electors are citizens of the state whose vote determines who wins the presidency. In 2020, Pennsylvania had 20 electoral votes. This year it has 19.
Each political party selects a slate of electors before the general election. Once the winner of the state’s popular vote is determined, the governor authorizes that candidate’s slate to cast their votes in the Electoral College (except in two states, Nebraska and Maine, which award some of their electoral votes proportionally and can split them between candidates). Each state’s electors then submit a certificate of their votes to Congress, which accepts and counts those electoral votes on Jan. 6 of the year following the presidential election. A presidential candidate needs 270 or more electoral votes to win.
Because Joe Biden won the popular vote in Pennsylvania in 2020, his slate of electors were chosen to be part of the Electoral College, and Congress counted the state’s electoral votes for him. But a slate supporting Trump also convened and cast purported electoral votes.
How did Pennsylvania’s alternate electors come together?
According to reporting from The New York Times and other news organizations, as well as Votebeat and Spotlight PA interviews with participants, the plan to convene alternate electors was organized by the Trump campaign.
Lawyers for the campaign, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, appointed a “point person” in each state to help organize the alternate electors, according to the Times. In Pennsylvania, that person was state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who reportedly needed assurances that the plan was legal.
However, two of the electors — Sam DeMarco and Charlie Gerow — said they mainly interacted with Trump attorney James Fitzpatrick.
On Dec. 14, the alternate GOP electors met in the offices of Quantum Communications, Gerow’s Harrisburg-based public affairs firm, to cast votes for Trump. Pennsylvania law requires that the electors meet in the state capital. Biden’s electors also met in Harrisburg to cast their votes on this day.
Unlike the Republicans in most other states, Pennsylvania’s GOP electors added an important caveat to the certificate they signed, saying that the votes they were casting should be counted only if a court found that they were the “duly elected and qualified electors.”
That likely shielded them from the legal consequences faced by participants of similar plots in Michigan and Arizona. But it was unlikely anyway that the alternative GOP slate could emerge as qualified electors.
Many of Trump’s lawsuits challenging Pennsylvania’s results had concluded by Dec. 14. Some of the original Trump electors, such as Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Lawrence Tabas, also declined to sign the certificate either due to concerns over its legality or because they recognized Biden as the legitimate winner, according to the final report of Congress’s January 6 committee, which investigated the 2021 attack on the Capitol on the day the electoral votes were tallied.
What they’re saying this time
Votebeat and Spotlight PA sought comment from the five 2020 GOP alternate electors who are electors again this year to ask them what they would do if they felt there was again a dispute over the results.
Khare and Reilly both disputed that the 2020 document they signed was an “alternate” slate, citing the caveat the electors added about the courts. Poprick also said the caveat was a “big” sticking point for the group.
“We were unanimous in saying we don’t have authority, so we made it contingent,” Reilly said. “If I am a 2024 elector and I am asked to cast a contingent vote, and if it’s legally proper, I will do so again.”
Reilly added that under “no circumstances” would he cast a vote for a candidate who was not certified and had “no path to victory.”
Khare said that in 2020, the alternate electors were not trying to evade the law and that the election was still “in dispute.”
When asked if he would sign a similar alternate slate this year, Khare said, “This is a hypothetical, and in politics, we do not answer hypothetical questions. It depends on what happens.”
Khare added that in 2020 things were “a mess” and that he didn’t expect that scenario this time because “people are aware of election integrity.”
Poprick also said she would be open to again putting her name on an alternate slate of electors.
“If the circumstances were the same and there were pending legal matters that had to be adjudicated, and you had to meet by that date, I would,” she said.
Comfort and Bachenberg did not immediately return phone messages or emails requesting comment.
Miller, of Informing Democracy, said the public should remain vigilant about efforts to weaponize misinformation, undermine the vote-counting process, and attack certification.
“These efforts will fail,” she said. “We remain committed to identifying any officials who may pose a threat to fair elections this November so that they may be monitored and held accountable for every step of the post-election process.”
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