Democrats are suddenly now attacking 11 Republican Arizona electors for choosing Donald Trump to receive Arizona’s electoral votes over a year ago, shortly after the 2020 presidential election. The Democrat-controlled U.S. House committee investigating the raucous protest at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 issued subpoenas on January 28 for some of the Republican electors in seven swing states that submitted both a Republican slate of electors along with a Democratic slate, including two Arizona Republicans.
A few of the electors have spoken up publicly in the last few days after it was made an issue, explaining they cast their votes believing Trump would prevail, since the election results were challenged in multiple lawsuits due to widespread belief there was voter fraud in Arizona and other swing states. The Arizona Sun Times reached out to several of them requesting comment, but they declined to respond, citing the legal risks.
Throughout the first couple of weeks in December 2020, it was not clear which way the courts were going to rule on the presidential election. Many Americans expected the outcome of the presidential race to be up in the air for a while, similar to the presidential race in 2000, which was not decided until the Supreme Court ruled on December 12 of that year. Both Time and Politico ran articles the month before the 2020 election speculating that the Supreme Court might end up deciding it. The Supreme Court continued to address briefs throughout December, including setting up a schedule to consider a petition Rudy Giuliani filed on December 20, 2020, to overturn the results of the Pennsylvania election.
At the time, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told a Fox News host in early to mid-December 2020, “in those four states we saw a lot of problems in with those big metro areas … there has been an alternate slate of electors voted upon that Congress will decide in January, so we will see what happens.” No one discussed at that time prosecuting the electors, who signed the Trump slate on December 14, 2020.
