LAS VEGAS (AP) 鈥� The yearslong case against six Nevada Republicans who were accused of submitting a bogus certificate that falsely declared Donald Trump the winner of the state鈥檚 2020 presidential election has been dismissed, a judge ruled Thursday.
The dismissal marks the latest setback in swing states鈥� efforts to prosecute fake electors who tried to keep Trump in the White House after he lost to Joe Biden in 2020.
Three other fake elector cases in Arizona, Michigan and Georgia have been dismissed. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes recently but vowed to bring it back to a grand jury in hopes of securing another indictment. The dismissal was a legal maneuver aimed at getting around a deadline for starting new grand jury proceedings after Mayes lost an appeal earlier in June.
Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, who is also as a Democrat, brought charges relating to forgery and 鈥渙ffering a false instrument for filing or record鈥� against the six Nevada Republicans, who pleaded not guilty.
His office plans to appeal the ruling.
The defendants included Michael McDonald, the chair of the Nevada Republican Party, and Jesse Law, the former chair of the Clark County Republican Party.
In a Thursday statement, McDonald鈥檚 defense attorney Richard Wright called the attorney general鈥檚 plans to appeal 鈥渉asty鈥� and 鈥減remature鈥� and said continuing the case was politically motivated.
After the 2020 election, the six Republican electors gathered outside of the Nevada Legislature to sign a certificate giving the state鈥檚 six electoral votes to Trump, despite Biden winning the state by more than 30,000 votes. The ceremony was broadcast online, and the video footage was used as evidence in the case.
The case has revolved around the defendants鈥� intent behind submitting the certificate.
Prosecutors argue the defendants intended for their documents to be mistaken for actual electoral votes that then-Vice President Mike Pence would count on Jan. 6, 2021.
The defendants say submitting the certificate was an act of 鈥減olitical theater鈥� designed to publicize their concerns about the election. They were preserving their rights to challenge the official election results and had no intent to deceive a government agency into accepting the GOP certificate as real, their attorneys argued.
Nevada Judge Mary Kay Holthus agreed.
She found there was a lack of evidence that showed the electors intended to deceive government officials, and she determined that the state failed to disclose exculpatory evidence to the grand jury.
鈥淭he 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,鈥� Holthus wrote in her ruling.
an issue, but the case , which is home to Las Vegas and leans Democratic.
The case was originally scheduled for a trial in Nevada’s capital of Carson City, but the attorney general’s office voluntarily dismissed the case to pursue it instead in Southern Nevada, which leans more Democratic.
Courts have dismissed similar cases in and , and a special prosecutor a federal case in late 2024 that charged Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. Those cases ended after Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024. A fake electors case in Wisconsin.
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