Earlier this week, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul unveiled felony charges against three people involved in the “fake electors” scheme in his state after Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss: lawyer Kenneth Chesebro; former judge and local Republican luminary James Troupis; and Mike Roman, who was Trump’s director of Election Day operations. Wisconsin has become the fifth state in which criminal charges have been brought against, or about, the fake electors.
19, which provides that in criminal matters relating to elections, “a defendant who is a resident of this state shall be tried in circuit court for the county where the defendant resides.” Put another way, a Wisconsin resident charged with an election-related crime cannot be forced to stand trial where the crime happened; all that matters is where that person lives now. So that could mean bringing several criminal cases — with the real possibility of inconsistent results.