Judge Drops Nevada Fake Electors Case in Latest Post-2020 Legal Retreat
On Thursday, a Nevada judge dismissed criminal charges against six state Republicans accused of certifying a bogus victory for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. The ruling marks the collapse of yet another high-profile prosecution targeting alternative electors across key swing states.
A Dismissal Rooted in Lack of Intent and Exculpatory Omissions
The yearslong legal battle collapsed in a Las Vegas courtroom when Nevada Judge Mary Kay Holthus handed down her dismissal. State prosecutors had pursued forgery charges and accusations of “offering a false instrument for filing or record” against the six defendants, who all maintained their innocence.
Judge Holthus ruled that the state failed to demonstrate the defendants intended to deceive government officials. She also pointed out that prosecutors neglected to disclose critical exculpatory evidence during the grand jury proceedings.
As The Associated Press reported, the judge emphasized that the public nature of the Republicans’ actions contradicted any theory of fraud. “The fact that Defendants openly announced both their actions and their asserted purpose, rather than concealing their conduct or attempting to secretly induce governmental reliance, weighs against a reasonable inference that they acted with fraudulent intent,” Holthus wrote in her ruling.
Following the November 2020 election—which Joe Biden won by more than 30,000 votes in Nevada—the six local Republicans gathered outside the Nevada Legislature. They signed a certificate casting the state’s six electoral votes for Trump. The ceremony streamed online, and prosecutors later used that video footage as evidence.
The Defense Strategy and the Attorney General’s Next Move
Defense attorneys argued that the ceremony was merely an act of “political theater.” They maintained that the participants intended to publicize their concerns about election integrity and preserve their legal rights to challenge official results, rather than trick Vice President Mike Pence into counting fraudulent votes on January 6, 2021.
The roster of defendants included high-profile local figures such as Michael McDonald, chair of the Nevada Republican Party, and Jesse Law, former chair of the Clark County Republican Party. Richard Wright, defense attorney for McDonald, called the state’s plans to appeal the decision “hasty” and “premature,” asserting that the prosecution was politically motivated.
Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat currently running for governor, originally brought the charges. His office announced plans to appeal Judge Holthus’s ruling. Jurisdiction had previously proved to be a hurdle for the state; the case originally landed in Carson City before the attorney general’s office voluntarily dismissed and refiled it in Clark County, a more Democratic-leaning region encompassing Las Vegas.
A Growing Trend Across 2020 Swing States
Nevada’s dropped case mirrors a broader national retreat by prosecutors attempting to penalize alternative electors. Similar legal efforts have unraveled in other pivotal 2020 swing states, including Arizona, Michigan, and Georgia.
In Arizona, Attorney General Kris Mayes recently dismissed her office’s criminal case under a legal maneuver designed to bypass strict deadlines for starting new grand jury proceedings after losing an appeal in June. Mayes has vowed to bring the matter back before a grand jury.
Meanwhile, a federal case charging Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election was dropped by a special prosecutor in late 2024 following Trump’s victory over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. Out of the original slate of multi-state prosecutions, only Wisconsin’s fake electors case remains actively pending.
