After Michigan’s Democratic state attorney general brought charges against 16 fake electors from the 2020 Presidential election last month, many are wondering whether the fake electors in Pennsylvania - including several in Northeast Pa. - will be charged by state officials.

The likely answer is “no,” because a legal clause was inserted into Pennsylvania’s and New Mexico’s documents certifying the alternate slate of electors would have validity only if the actual electors pledged to Joe Biden were found to be invalid.

The Michigan electors submitted paperwork to the federal government falsely claiming that they were the legitimate electors pledged to then-President Donald Trump, who they falsely said had won the state when, in fact, he had clearly lost Michigan.

The same is true in Pennsylvania, with the exception that the fake electors apparently would only have authority if it was found that Biden had been elected fraudulently, which, of course, it was proved time and time again that he wasn’t.

Pennsylvania, Michigan and Nevada were among seven battleground states where fake electors pledged to Trump were convened.

As you probably recall, the President of the United States is elected through the Electoral College where at least 270 electoral votes are needed for victory, regardless of the outcome of the popular vote. For example, when Trump was first elected in 2016, he outpaced Democrat Hillary Clinton 304-227 in the Electoral College vote even though Clinton had nearly 3 million more popular votes.

Four years later, Biden won the Electoral College count, 306-232, and also had about 7.06 million more popular votes than Trump. On Dec. 14, 2020, electors of the Electoral College gathered in their respective states and the District of Columbia to cast their ballots reflecting the will of their voters and verifying officially the results. These bogus Republican electors also met that day in their respective state capitals.

Even after his court challenges were denied, even though his closest advisers insisted that Trump’s and other allies’ claims that the election was stolen were wrong and misguided, Trump continued to push the lie that he had won. This culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., which led to a delay in the vote certification of the 2020 election.

Trump’s actions resulted in the recent 45-page indictment brought by a Washington, D.C., grand jury that accuses the former president of criminal schemes in efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The Democratic-led House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol announced in February that it had subpoenaed 14 people tied to an attempt to have bogus electors recognized in an effort to keep Trump in office. Among them were several bogus electors from Pennsylvania. This effort was also noted in the latest Trump indictments.

These bogus Pennsylvania electors are not rogue hoodlums but in many cases prominent Republicans, who, essentially, thumbed their noses at the Constitution and the Rule of Law. The point person for the Pennsylvania alternate electors’ effort was listed as state Sen. Doug Mastriano, the unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor last year.

One of the 14 fake electors subpoenaed by the Congressional Select committee is a local businessman - Bill Bachenbach, owner of Lehigh County Sporting Clays in Coplay. He is listed as chairman of the Pennsylvania alternate electors. The other Pennsylvanian subpoenaed was Lisa Patton, listed as secretary of the alternate group and state events director during Trump’s unsuccessful run for the presidency in 2020.

There were 18 other Pennsylvania “fake” electors whose names were submitted to try to throw a monkey wrench into the electoral ballot counting. Two of them - former Hazleton Mayor and ex-U. S. Rep. Lou Barletta and GOP political strategist Charlie Gerow - were unsuccessful gubernatorial candidates last year.

Several other local and area Republican VIPs were part of the bogus group, including Tom Carroll, a Bethlehem attorney who was an unsuccessful candidate for Northampton County District Attorney last year and is now a member of the county Republican committee; Josephine Ferro, the current Register of Wills in Monroe County and former president of the Pennsylvania Federation of Republican Women; former U.S. Rep. Tom Marino, who at one time represented part of a local Congressional district before reapportionment; Lance Stange, former chair of the Lackawanna County Republican Committee and ex-chair of the Northeast Pennsylvania Caucus, and Patricia Poprik, chair of the Bucks County Republican Committee.

Each state gets the number of electors equal to the total of its members in Congress. In Pennsylvania in 2020, there were 18 members in the U.S. House of Representatives and two U.S. Senators, for a total of 20. Following the results of the 2020 Decennial Census and the reapportionment of legislative seats, Pennsylvania lost one House seat, so in next year’s Presidential election, it will have 19 electors.

By BRUCE FRASSINELLI| tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.