ExtremismLedger
ExtremismLedger is a living public-interest database. Records are continuously reviewed, updated, and expanded as new verified information becomes available.

Mary Buestrin

Included on the basis of: Named in incident record — 2020 Fake Elector Scheme

Vice Chair, Midwest Region, Republican National Committee; longtime Republican Party of Wisconsin national committeewoman; signed Wisconsin's December 14, 2020 Trump/Pence elector certificate.

Location: Wisconsin

Documented claims

Documented fact 11/10/2025

On November 10, 2025, President Trump issued Mary Buestrin a federal pardon covering offenses related to the 2020 election. Because Mary Buestrin had never faced state or federal criminal charges over the certificate, this pardon is described by reporting as largely symbolic.

Documented fact 12/06/2023

No Wisconsin criminal charges have been filed against Mary Buestrin or any of the other nine signers; the Wisconsin Attorney General instead charged campaign attorneys Kenneth Chesebro, Jim Troupis, and Michael Roman, whose cases remain active in Dane County. In a civil lawsuit (Penebaker et al. v. Hitt et al.) brought by Law Forward, Mary Buestrin joined the other nine signers in a consent judgment, announced December 6, 2023, in which they publicly acknowledged they were not Wisconsin's lawful electors, that their document had been used in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election at the request of the Trump campaign and state party, and agreed not to serve as or sign certificates as electors in any future election in which they are not the state-certified electors under law. The settlement did not require any admission of criminal wrongdoing.

Documented fact 12/14/2020

Mary Buestrin was one of 10 Wisconsin Republicans who met in the State Capitol basement in Madison on December 14, 2020 -- the same day Wisconsin's certified Biden-Harris electors met elsewhere in the Capitol -- and signed a "Certificate of the Votes of the 2020 Electors from Wisconsin" declaring themselves the state's "duly elected and qualified" electors for Donald Trump and Mike Pence. On its face, the document was unconditional, unlike Pennsylvania's and New Mexico's certificates. Then-state party chair Andrew Hitt has publicly stated he was told by outside counsel the document would take legal effect only if a pending lawsuit challenging Wisconsin's results succeeded -- a characterization attributed to his own account, not established as the shared understanding of all 10 signers.

Relationships

Confirmed Associated with incident — 2020 Fake Elector Scheme (Signer, Wisconsin Trump elector certificate (Dec. 14, 2020))

12/14/2020