LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan’s attorney general filed felony charges Tuesday against 16 Republicans who acted as fake electors for then-President Donald Trump in 2020, accusing them of submitting false certificates that confirmed they were legitimate electors despite Joe Biden’s victory in the state.

Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, announced Tuesday that all 16 people would face eight criminal charges, including forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery. The top charges carry a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.

The group includes the head of the Republican National Committee’s chapter in Michigan, Kathy Berden, as well as the former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, Meshawn Maddock, and Shelby Township Clerk Stan Grot.

In seven battleground states, including Michigan, supporters of Trump signed certificates that falsely stated he won their states, not Biden. The fake certificates were ignored, but the attempt has been subject to investigations, including by the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

“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,” Nessel said in a statement.

The 16 individuals are set to appear for arraignment in Ingham County at a date provided to each by the court, according to Nessel’s office.

Phone and email messages seeking comment Tuesday from several of the people charged were not immediately returned.

One of those charged, John Haggard, 82, of Charlevoix, told The Detroit News on Tuesday that he he didn’t believe he did anything wrong.

“Did I do anything illegal? No,” Haggard said.

GOP state Sen. Ed McBroom, who chaired a GOP-led Senate panel to investigate Michigan’s 2020 presidential election that found no wrongdoing, said he previously spoke with one of the fake electors. It was clear, McBroom said, that the effort was organized by “people who put themselves in a position of authority and posing themselves as the ones who knew what they were doing.”

“They were wrong,” McBroom told The Associated Press. “And other people followed them when they shouldn’t have.”

Berden and Mayra Rodriguez, a Michigan lawyer who was also charged Tuesday, were both questioned by congressional investigators as part of the U.S. House panel’s investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection.

In January of last year, Nessel asked federal prosecutors to open a criminal investigation into the 16 Republicans.

“Obviously this is part of a much bigger conspiracy,” she said at the time.

Electors are people appointed to represent voters in presidential elections. The winner of the popular vote in each state determines which party’s electors are sent to the Electoral College, which meets in December after the election to certify the outcome.

False Electoral College certificates were also submitted declaring Trump the winner of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Investigations are underway in some other states that submitted fake electors, but not all.

A Georgia prosecutor investigating possible illegal meddling in the 2020 election has agreed to immunity deals with at least eight fake electors. And Arizona’s Democratic attorney general is in the very early stages of a probe. Nevada’s attorney general, also a Democrat, has said he won’t bring charges, while Wisconsin has no active investigation and the attorney general has deferred to the U.S. Justice Department.

There is no apparent investigation in Pennsylvania and former Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who is now governor, said he didn’t believe there was evidence the actions of the fake electors met the legal standards for forgery.

A group of other Trump allies in Michigan, including former GOP attorney general candidate Matthew DePerno, are facing potential criminal charges related to attempts to gain access to voting machines after the 2020 election.

According to documents released last year by Nessel’s office, five vote tabulators were taken from Roscommon and Missaukee counties in northern Michigan, and Barry County in western Michigan. The tabulators were subsequently broken into and “tests” were performed on the equipment.

A grand jury was convened in March at the request of a special prosecutor to consider indictments, according to court records. The special prosecutor, D.J. Hilson, wrote in May in a court document that “a charging decision is ready to be made.”

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EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The 43-year-old gunman who killed three students and wounded five others at Michigan State University had no apparent connection to the campus, police said Tuesday as they searched for a motive for shootings that terrified the community for hours.

Investigators were sorting out why Anthony McRae fired inside an academic building and the student union just before 8:30 p.m. Monday. An hourslong lockdown at the campus in East Lansing ended when he killed himself miles away while being confronted by police.

The shooting happened the day before the fifth anniversary of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting that killed 17 and is the latest in what has become a deadly new year in the U.S.

“We have to do something to stop the gun violence that’s ripping apart our communities,” President Joe Biden said in a speech Tuesday, mentioning Michigan State.

Meanwhile, a school district in Ewing Township, New Jersey, closed for the day after investigators said that McRae, who lived in the area years ago, had a note in his pocket indicating a threat to schools there. But it was determined there was no credible threat, local police said later in a statement shared by the superintendent.

The dead and injured in the gunfire at Berkey Hall and the MSU Union, a popular place to eat and study, were all Michigan State students. Five remained in critical condition at Sparrow Hospital, said Dr. Denny Martin, who fought back tears during a news conference Tuesday.

“We have absolutely no idea what the motive was,” said Chris Rozman, deputy chief of campus police, adding that McRae, of Lansing, was not a student or Michigan State employee.

“This is still fluid,” Rozman said. “There are still crime scenes that are being processed, and we still are in the process of putting together the pieces to try to understand what happened.”

The dead were all from the Detroit area. Two gradated from separate high schools in the Grosse Pointe district: Brian Fraser, president of Phi Delta Theta fraternity, and Arielle Anderson. Alexandria Verner, a graduate of Clawson High School in another Detrot suburb, also died.

“If you knew her, you loved her and we will forever remember the lasting impact she has had on all of us,” Clawson Superintendent Billy Shellenbarger said in an email to families.

The shootings took place in an area of older, stately buildings on the northern edge of the Michigan State campus, one of the nation’s largest at 5,200 acres. Just across busy Grand River Avenue lies East Lansing’s downtown, teeming with restaurants, bars and shops.

“Our Spartan community is reeling today,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Michigan State graduate, said at the morning briefing.

Biden pledged his support during a phone call, she said.

“We mourn the loss of beautiful souls today and pray for those who are continuing to fight for their lives. … Another place that is supposed to be about community and togetherness is shattered by bullets and bloodshed,” Whitmer said.

Michigan State has about 50,000 students, including 19,000 who live on campus. As hundreds of officers scoured the campus, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) northwest of Detroit, students hid where they could Monday night.

At 11 p.m., police were still searching for McRae when he turned up on school security cameras, and his image was quickly released to news media. An “alert citizen” saw the picture, recognized him in the Lansing area and contacted police within minutes, Rozman said.

“That was exactly what we were trying to achieve by releasing that picture. We had no idea where he was at that point,” the deputy chief said.

Officers confronted McRae about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from campus in an industrial area, where he killed himself, Rozman said.

In 2019, McRae was accused of illegally possessing a concealed weapon, according to the state Corrections Department, but pleaded guilty to having a loaded gun in a vehicle, a misdemeanor. He completed 18 months of probation.

A large police presence was in his Lansing neighborhood overnight. Suzanne Shook said she has lived a block away from McRae for about a year.

“We never spoke to him,” Shook said. “When he would be walking or riding his bike, he was always straightforward and wouldn’t look at anybody.”

Students, meanwhile, recalled the previous night’s terror. Dominik Molotky said he was learning about Cuban history around 8:15 p.m. when he and the other students heard a gunshot outside the classroom. He told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that a few seconds later, the gunman entered and fired three to four more rounds.

“I was ducking and covering, and the same with the rest of the students,” Molotky said.

Claire Papoulias, a sophomore, described on NBC’s “Today” how she and other students scrambled to escape a history class through a window after the gunman entered from a back door and began firing.

“As soon as I fell out of the window I kind of hit the ground a little. I just grabbed my backpack and my phone, and I remember I just ran for my life,” she said.

All classes, sports and other activities were canceled for 48 hours. Interim university President Teresa Woodruff said it would be a time “to think and grieve and come together.”

Dozens of people have died in mass shootings so far in 2023, most notably in California, where 11 people were killed as they welcomed the Lunar New Year at a dance hall popular with older Asian Americans. In 2022, more than 600 mass shootings occurred in the U.S. in which at least four people were killed or wounded, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

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Voters in battleground Michigan enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution, joining reliably Democratic California and Vermont in taking that step. An anti-abortion measure in Kentucky was too early to call. The Tuesday ballot measures came months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to abortion it guaranteed to women nationwide. The decision in June has led to near-total bans in a dozen states.

Supporters of the push to protect abortion rights in Michigan collected more signatures than any other ballot initiative in state history to get it before the voters. It puts a definitive end to a 1931 ban on abortion that had been blocked in court but could have been revived. It also affirms the right to make pregnancy-related decisions about abortion and other reproductive services such as birth control without interference. On Michigan State University’s campus, junior Devin Roberts said that students seemed “fired up” and that he had seen lines of voters spilling out of the school’s polling places throughout the day.

The ballot measure was one of the main drivers of the high turnout, he said. “There’s a lot of energy for Prop 3 on campus right now, whether you agree with abortion or not,” Roberts said. “I think students want to have the same rights that their parents had when they were younger.” Nationally, about two-thirds of voters say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of over 90,000 voters across the country. Only about 1 in 10 say abortion should be illegal in all cases.

About 6 in 10 also say the Supreme Court’s abortion decision made them dissatisfied or angry, compared with fewer who say they were happy or satisfied. James Miller, 66, of Flint, Michigan, said he thought of his daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters when he voted in favor of the measure. “I think we should do the right thing for women,” he said. “It’s her body; it’s her privacy.” Michelle Groesser, of Swartz Creek, Michigan, said she opposes abortion, even though she believes that any ban likely would have some narrow exceptions. “In a perfect world, I personally would want all life preserved,” she said.

Opponents have contended the Michigan measure could have far-reaching effects on other laws in the state, such as one requiring parental notification of an abortion for someone under age 18. Legal experts say changes to other laws would only happen if someone sued and won, a process that could take years and has no certainty of success.

Even so, the messaging appeared to resonate with some Michigan voters, including Brian Bauer, 64, of Mundy Township, who said the proposal was confusing and voted against it. Bauer is an abortion opponent who supports some limited exceptions, “but nobody’s willing to throw (in) any kind of compromise … it’s either a yes or no vote.” Montana voters, meanwhile, were also considering newborn resuscitative care requirements with possible criminal penalties, including the rare case of an attempted abortion. In deeply conservative Kentucky, the ballot measure would amend the state constitution to say there is no right to abortion.

The Republican-controlled Legislature has already passed a near-total ban on abortion. The measure would not change that, but the results could shadow the legal battle returning to a courtroom a week after Election Day. Lawmakers added the proposed amendment to the ballot last year, a move that some thought would drive more conservative voters to the polls. But after the Roe decision, abortion-rights supporters raised nearly $1.5 million to fight it. They were hoping to repeat the surprise outcome this summer in conservative Kansas, where voters overwhelmingly defeated a similar amendment that would have allowed new bans or restrictions.

Initial returns indicated that thousands of Kentucky voters who backed GOP Sen. Rand Paul for reelection opposed the abortion amendment. At a elementary school in Simpsonville, a small town outside of Louisville, 71-year-old voter Jim Stewart said he voted for Paul, calling him “the only one on TV making sense.” Stewart is a registered Republican and opposed to abortion, but still voted no on the amendment. “You got to have a little choice there.” Al Smith, 83, voted yes: “I don’t believe in abortion at all, not for any circumstance,” he said.

The reproductive-rights question in Vermont, came after Legislature passed a law in 2019 guaranteeing reproductive rights, including getting pregnant and having access to birth control. Supporters with the Reproductive Liberty Ballot Committee said the overturning of Roe meant “state-level protections are vital to safeguarding access to reproductive health care.” California already had passed several measures aimed at easing access to abortion and set aside millions of taxpayer dollars to help pay for some out-of-state abortion travel.

On Tuesday, voters approved language that would explicitly guarantee access to abortion and contraception in the state constitution. The question for Montana voters was whether to create criminal penalties for health care providers unless they do everything “medically appropriate and reasonable” to save the life of a baby after birth, including the rare possibility of birth after an attempted abortion.

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OXFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — A 15-year-old sophomore opened fire at his Michigan high school on Tuesday, killing three students and wounding eight other people, including at least one teacher, authorities said.

Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe said at a news conference that investigators were still trying to determine a motive for the shooting at Oxford High School in Oxford Township, a community of about 22,000 people roughly 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Detroit.

He said he was aware of allegations circulating on social media that there had been threats of a shooting at the roughly 1,700-student school prior to Tuesday’s attack, but he cautioned against believing that narrative until investigators can look into it.

Authorities didn’t immediately release the suspect’s name, but McCabe said deputies arrested him without incident within minutes of arriving at the school in response to a flood of 911 calls about the attack, which happened shortly before 1 p.m. He said the deputies also recovered the semi-automatic handgun and several clips the suspect used in the attack.

“He fired multiple shots,” McCabe said. “Somewhere in the area of 15 to 20.”

The three students who were killed were a 16-year-old boy and two girls, ages 14 and 17, McCabe said. Two of the wounded were undergoing surgery as of 5 p.m. and the six others who were wounded were in stable condition, he said.

McCabe said the suspect’s parents visited their son where he’s being held and advised him not to talk to investigators, as is his right. Police have to seek permission from a juvenile suspect’s parents or guardian to speak with them, he added.

McCabe said he wasn’t aware of any prior run-ins the suspect had with law enforcement or if he had any disciplinary history at school.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer also spoke at the news conference, saying, “I think this is every parent’s worst nightmare,” while choking up.

The school was placed on lockdown after the attack, with some children sheltering in locked classrooms while officers searched the premises. They were later taken to a nearby Meijer grocery store to be picked up by their parents.

Isabel Flores, a 15-year-old ninth grader, told WJBK-TV that she and other students heard gunshots and saw another student bleeding from the face. They then ran from the area through the rear of the school, she said.

McCabe said investigators would be poring over the school’s video footage and looking through social media posts for any evidence of a possible motive.

A concerned parent, Robin Redding, said her son, Treshan Bryant, is a 12th grader at the school but stayed home on Tuesday. She said he had heard threats that there could be a shooting.

“This couldn’t be just random,” she said.

Redding didn’t provide specifics about what her son had heard, but she expressed concern with school safety in general.

“Kids just, like they’re just mad at each other at this school,” she said.

Bryant said he texted several younger cousins in the morning and they said they didn’t want to go to school, and he got a bad feeling. He asked his mom if he could do his assignments online.

Bryant said he had heard vague threats “for a long time now” about plans for a shooting at the school.

“You’re not supposed to play about that,” he said of the threats. “This is real life.”

School administrators posted two letters to parents on the school’s website this month, saying they were responding to rumors of a threat against the school following a bizarre vandalism incident.

According to a Nov. 4 letter written by Principal Steve Wolf, someone threw a deer head into a courtyard from the school’s roof, painted several windows on the roof with red acrylic paint and used the same paint on concrete near the school building.

Without specifically referencing that incident, a second post on Nov. 12 assured “there has been no threat to our building nor our students.”

“We are aware of the numerous rumors that have been circulating throughout our building this week. We understand that has created some concern for students and parents,” the administrators wrote. “Please know that we have reviewed every concern shared with us and investigated all information provided. Some rumors have evolved from an incident last week, while others do not appear to have any connection. Student interpretations of social media posts and false information have exacerbated the overall concern.”

McCabe said the incident with the deer head was “absolutely unrelated” to Tuesday’s shooting.

“That was a different incident, different student,” he said.

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