A Nevada judge on Friday dismissed the case against six so-called “fake electors” who falsely claimed former President Trump won the state in the 2020 presidential election.
Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus ruled that prosecutors with the Nevada attorney general’s office chose the wrong venue in which to file the case, calling off a trial scheduled for January.
“We disagree with the judge’s decision and will be appealing immediately,” said John Sadler, a spokesperson for the Nevada attorney general’s office.
The pro-Trump electors who were charged were Michael McDonald, Jesse Law, Jim DeGraffenreid, Durward James Hindle III, Shawn Meehan and Eileen Rice. They each faced felony charges of offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged document, which carry penalties up to four or five years in prison.
When announcing their indictments, the state attorney general’s office said in a statement they posed as “duly qualified” electors to “disrupt the results of a free and fair presidential election.”
The alternate electors scheme relied on former Vice President Mike Pence to certify slates of Trump-supporting electors in battleground states instead of the true Electoral College votes cast for now-President Biden. Pence declined to do so on Jan. 6, 2021, the day of the election certification, after which a mob of Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol.
In addition to Nevada, fake electors allegedly convened in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Wisconsin, claiming without basis that they were “duly elected” electors from their states. Trump’s lawyers spearheaded the plan, and several face charges in other states in connection with it.