By Jack Kelly

Wisconsin Watch

Wisconsin Watch readers have submitted questions to our statehouse team, and we’ll answer them in our series, Ask Wisconsin Watch. Have a question about state government? Ask it here.

Question: Are Wisconsin’s fake electors going to be charged and prosecuted?

The most straightforward answer to this question three years after 10 Republicans gathered in Wisconsin’s Capitol to cast unauthorized 2020 electoral votes for Donald Trump is: We still don’t know.

Charges stemming from criminal investigations often remain under wraps until prosecutors announce them. Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul and other state Department of Justice officials have maintained for months that they cannot confirm or deny the existence of an investigation into the incident.

A DOJ spokesperson reiterated that line to Wisconsin Watch after the 10 settled a lawsuit, in part, by admitting they were part of a scheme to overturn the election.

Then, late last week, CNN reported that the Wisconsin Department of Justice was investigating the fake elector scheme. Citing unnamed sources, CNN said that Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney central to Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, was cooperating with state investigators in Michigan and Wisconsin, the first indication of an investigation in Wisconsin.

The civil lawsuit was filed by a pair of electors for Joe Biden, who won Wisconsin in 2020 by about 20,000 votes. Under the terms of the settlement, the 10 Republicans agreed to withdraw their bogus paperwork, not serve as electors in any race where Trump is on the ballot and acknowledge Biden’s victory. There is no financial element to the settlement, though the Biden electors initially sought as much as $200,000 from each of the false Trump electors.

Attorneys representing the Biden electors in the lawsuit have advocated for criminal charges against the false Trump electors. They have written to Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne requesting they investigate the false Republican electors.

While no Wisconsin prosecutor has acknowledged an investigation into the matter, officials in other states have charged the false electors in those states.

In July the 16 false electors who produced similar paperwork in Michigan were hit with felony charges by the state attorney general. A handful of Republicans who posed as false Trump electors in Georgia also face charges. And a grand jury in Nevada last week indicted the six Republicans who posed as false electors for Trump.