Nevada Judge Dismisses ‘Fake Electors’ Charges for Second Time, Citing Lack of Fraudulent Intent

A Clark County judge on Thursday dismissed criminal charges against six Nevada Republicans accused of submitting an alternate slate of electors after the 2020 presidential election, marking the second time the case has been thrown out and dealing another setback to prosecutors seeking convictions in the so-called fake electors investigations.

District Judge Mary Kay Holthus ruled that state prosecutors failed to present sufficient evidence that the defendants acted with the intent to defraud or deceive government officials. In her order, Holthus noted that the six Republicans openly announced their actions and their stated purpose rather than concealing them or attempting to secretly induce official reliance on the documents. “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,” she wrote.

The judge further determined that prosecutors had undermined the integrity of the indictment by withholding certain evidence from the grand jury that returned the charges. She concluded that the state had not established the essential elements of the offenses—forgery and offering a false instrument for filing or record—and therefore the indictment could not stand.

The defendants include Michael McDonald, chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, and Jesse Law, former chairman of the Clark County Republican Party, along with four others. They were charged by Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford’s office after they gathered outside the Nevada Legislature in December 2020 and signed a certificate declaring Donald Trump the winner of the state’s six electoral votes. Joe Biden had carried Nevada by more than 30,000 votes. The signing was conducted publicly and broadcast online. Defense attorneys have long maintained that the action constituted political theater intended to preserve legal challenges to the election results and was never presented as an official or secret attempt to replace the certified electors.

This was the second dismissal by Holthus. In 2024 she threw out the case on venue grounds, ruling that Clark County was an improper location for the prosecution. The Nevada Supreme Court unanimously reversed that decision and returned the matter to Southern Nevada. A parallel proceeding in Carson City has also been dismissed.

Ford’s office announced it will appeal the latest ruling to the state Supreme Court, just as it did after the first dismissal. In a statement, Ford called the decision “once again wrong” and said his office would continue efforts to hold the individuals accountable for actions he described as attempts to undermine democracy and erode trust in elections. Defense counsel criticized the planned appeal as hasty and politically motivated, particularly given Ford’s concurrent campaign for governor.

The Nevada case is one of several brought against Republican electors who signed alternate certificates in states won by Biden in 2020. Similar prosecutions in Arizona, Michigan, and Georgia have also been dismissed or significantly stalled. Prosecutors in those matters and in Nevada have argued the certificates were designed to create confusion or pressure during the electoral count process. Defendants and their attorneys have consistently described the documents as contingent measures tied to ongoing litigation and public political statements rather than forgeries intended to deceive officials into treating them as authentic.Thursday’s ruling prolongs a legal battle that has now stretched more than three years. Any appeal is expected to take considerable time, potentially outlasting Ford’s current term if he leaves office after the gubernatorial race. The decision adds to a growing list of state-level setbacks for efforts to criminalize the 2020 alternate-elector actions, even as the underlying political disputes over that election continue to resonate.