Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel walks to her seat before the State of the State address on Jan. 25 at the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich.

Al Goldis/AP

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Al Goldis/AP

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel walks to her seat before the State of the State address on Jan. 25 at the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich.

Al Goldis/AP

Michigan’s attorney general has announced charges against 16 residents for serving as so-called fake electors following the 2020 presidential election.

The electors signed documents falsely attesting that Donald Trump won the state in the election. Trump lost Michigan to Joe Biden.

The broader fake elector scheme is part of special counsel Jack Smith’s federal investigation into Trump and the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Those charged include former Michigan Republican Party Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock. Each defendant faces charges including election law forgery.

“The false electors’ actions undermined the public’s faith in the integrity of our elections and, we believe, also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan,” Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, said in a statement.

The statement details:

These defendants are alleged to have met covertly in the basement of the Michigan Republican Party headquarters on December 14th, and signed their names to multiple certificates stating they were the “duly elected and qualified electors for President and Vice President of the United States of America for the State of Michigan.” These false documents were then transmitted to the United States Senate and National Archives in a coordinated effort to award the state’s electoral votes to the candidate of their choosing, in place of the candidates actually elected by the people of Michigan.

This story will be updated.