The month after the presidential election in 2020, Democratic and Republican electors representing the candidate who won the popular vote in their states gathered across the country to formally cast electoral votes for president.

But in seven states that Joe Biden won, Republican electors got together anyway and cast phony votes for Donald Trump. They’ve become known as fake electors. And according to federal prosecutors, they were part of a plan to overturn the election, orchestrated by pro-Trump attorneys with Trump’s support. State criminal charges have been filed against fake electors in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Nevada.