The Arizona fake electors case is back to square one after the state Supreme Court declined to hear prosecutors’ bid to revive previous indictments.

In November 2025, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes to review the case. The Supreme Court turned down the request this week in a .

In May 2025, a Superior Court judge tossed the indictments against accused of conspiring to overturn Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in Arizona’s 2020 election.

The judge ruled that the full details of a pertinent federal law, the Electoral Count Act, were not provided to the grand jury. An appeals court upheld the decision in September.

The Arizona Attorney General’s Office said Thursday it will return the case to the grand jury and declined to comment further.

Similar cases in Michigan and Georgia have been dismissed by the courts. A special prosecutor dropped a federal case in late 2024 that charged Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.

When did the Arizona fake electors case start?

A grand jury initially indicted the so-called Arizona fake electors on forgery, fraud and conspiracy charges in April 2024. The list of defendants included high-ranking Arizona Republicans and out-of-state Trump loyalists like former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and adviser Rudy Giuliani.

Court documents showed that the grand jury members wanted to indict Trump, too, but prosecutors advised against it.

Former Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward and current state Sen. Jake Hoffman are among 11 Arizonans accused of signing documents saying Trump won the state’s Electoral College votes on Dec. 14, 2020. The Arizona Republican Party posted video of the signing to social media that day.

Biden was certified as Arizona’s winner by over 10,000 votes on his way to taking the White House.

Defense lawyers argued the Electoral Count Act allowed for multiple slates of electors to be submitted to Congress in case the results were disputed, though it was amended in 2022 to specify that a state could put forward only one slate of electors and that it was the governor who would sign off.

Who are the defendants in the Arizona fake electors case?

The following 16 defendants were listed in the review petition that was rejected by the Arizona Supreme Court this week:

• Christina Bobb
• Tyler Bowyer
• Nancy Cottle
• John Eastman
• Boris Epshteyn
• Rudolph Giuliani
• Jacob Hoffman
• Anthony Kern
• James Lamon
• Mark Meadows
• Robert Montgomery
• Samuel Moorhead
• Michael Roman
• Gregory Safsten
• Kelli Ward
• Michael Ward

The other two people charged resolved their cases in August 2024. First, former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for getting the charges against her dropped. The same week, Republican activist Loraine Pellegrino pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of filing a false document.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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