The case was dismissed on a jurisdictional basis
A judge has dismissed the case against six Nevada Republicans who submitted “fake” electoral votes for former president Donald Trump in 2020.
In a hearing held on Friday morning, Clark County Judge Mary Kay Holthus said she did not believe Clark County was the appropriate jurisdiction for the case to be tried.
“You have literally, in my opinion, a crime that has occurred in another jurisdiction,” Holthus said.
“It’s so appropriately up north and so appropriately not here.”
The state is unable to refile the case “up north”, in Carson City or Douglas County, where the “fake” votes were signed and mailed respectively, because the three-year stature of limitations for the case has now expired. Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford has said he will appeal the ruling to the state’s Supreme Court.
The decision is the first “fake elector” case to receive a judgment. There are currently prosecutions taking place in four other swing states (Michigan, Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin) where the Trump campaign attempted to submit alternative electoral votes in 2020.
The six defendants in the Nevada case—Michael McDonald, Jim DeGraffenreid, Jesse Law, Jim Hindle, Shawn Meegan and Eileen Rice—were indicted on counts of offering a false imprisonment for filing and uttering a forged instruments, which together carry potential sentences of two to nine years’ imprisonment.
The merits of the case were not considered. The defendants challenged the constitutionality of the charges against them, arguing that they did not intend to defraud state and federal officials, and that the documents were not forged but simply contained “false information.”
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