Who is David Shafer?

David Shafer is a former Georgia state senator and the former chair of the state’s Republican Party. He is one of 19 defendants indicted in the Fulton County grand jury investigation into the 2020 scheme to overturn the presidential election results in the state. David Shafer organized the 16 fake presidential electors for Donald Trump from Georgia, and acted as a fake elector himself.

Background

David Shafer was a state senator for the 48th district of Georgia, which includes parts of Fulton, Gwinnett, and Forsyth counties, from 2002 to 2019. He was elected chair of the Georgia GOP in 2019 and remained in this role until 2023. His involvement in the fake elector scheme occurred in 2020, while he was chair of the state Republican party

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Why Was Shafer Indicted?

Fake Elector Plot

As part of the scheme to overturn the 2020 election results, Shafer was key in organizing the 16 individuals that signed a fake electoral college certificate purporting to award the state’s electoral college votes to Donald Trump, despite the fact that Joe Biden won the popular vote in Georgia. The goal of this effort was to send two slate of presidential electors–the true slate of electors for Biden and the false slate of electors for Trump–to Congress, in order to have that body or Vice President Pence ultimately proclaim Trump to be the winner of the state. 

Shafer organized and led a secret meeting for the 16 fake electors in the Georgia Capitol building in Atlanta in December 2020. The 16 fake electors signed their fraudulent electoral certifications for Trump in this meeting. Shafer is alleged to have participated in this effort with fellow co-defendant Shawn Still, who was the secretary of the meeting and a fake elector. 

Shafer was indicted in Fulton County, GA in August 2023 on 8 counts. In total, 84 fake electors – including those in Georgia as well as the six other states where such electors organized – signed and submitted fake Electoral College certificates to the National Archives declaring Donald Trump the winner even though Biden had won in their states.

Shafer’s charges include: 

• violating Georgia’s Racketeer and Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (“RICO”) Act,

• impersonating a public officer,

• two counts of forgery in the first degree,

• three counts of making false statements and writings and

• criminal attempt to file false documents,