Nevada Judge Dismisses ‘Fake Electors’ Case a Second Time, Faults AG Ford’s Office for Withholding Evidence

In a sharp rebuke of Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford’s office, Clark County District Judge Mary Kay Holthus on Thursday dismissed felony charges against six Nevada Republicans accused of serving as “fake electors” for Donald Trump after the 2020 election.  

Holthus ruled that prosecutors failed to present sufficient evidence that the defendants acted with the requisite intent to defraud, describing the state’s evidence as “at best, minimal.” Critically, the judge also found that Ford’s office withheld key exculpatory evidence from the grand jury that returned the original indictment, independently undermining the integrity of the charges. 

“The State failed to present sufficient evidence from which a reasonable grand jury could infer the requisite intent to defraud,” Holthus wrote. She emphasized that the Republican electors conducted their actions openly and publicly, announced their purpose of preserving legal challenges to the election results, and made no effort to conceal their activities. No Nevada election officials treated the GOP certificate as legitimate or acted upon it under any mistaken belief that it was genuine.  

“The GOP Certificate was not a document that could legally be accepted, filed, registered, or recorded under Nevada or federal law,” the judge stated. “Nor was there evidence that any public official believed it to be Nevada’s official electoral certificate or was induced to act upon it in the mistaken belief that it was genuine.”  

The defendants include Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald, former Clark County Republican Party Chairman Jesse Law, Republican National Committeeman Jim DeGraffenreid, state party Vice Chair Jim Hindle, Shawn Meehan, and Eileen Rice. They faced charges of offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument after signing a certificate in Carson City on December 14, 2020, purporting to cast Nevada’s six electoral votes for Trump, even though Joe Biden had won the state by roughly 30,000 votes. The group then transmitted the documents to various officials. 

This marks the second time Holthus has thrown out the case. In June 2024 she dismissed it on venue grounds, finding Clark County improper because the key acts occurred in northern Nevada. The Nevada Supreme Court later reversed that ruling and returned the matter to Las Vegas. Ford’s office also pursued a parallel case in Carson City that has likewise been dismissed.  

As the California Globe previously reported, the prosecution has faced repeated setbacks and questions about its foundation and political motivations. A Carson City judge had earlier allowed a version of the case to proceed, describing it as one of the hardest calls of his career, while Ford continued to press the matter amid his campaign for governor. 

In her latest order, Holthus went further, scolding the attorney general’s office for withholding exculpatory material from the grand jury. Defense attorneys had long argued that prosecutors failed to present evidence showing the electors lacked criminal intent and that the documents could not have deceived any official. Holthus agreed that the omissions compromised the indictment.  

Ford immediately vowed to appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court. “The District Court’s decision is, once again, wrong, and we will appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court, just as we did when the court first dismissed our case against these defendants,” he said in a statement. “My office will continue to work to hold these fake electors accountable for their actions which attempted to undermine our democracy and erode trust in our elections.”  

The Nevada case is the latest in a series of collapsed prosecutions of so-called alternate electors. Similar charges have been dismissed in Arizona, Michigan, and Georgia. Many of the individuals who signed the certificates have maintained they believed they were creating contingent or placeholder documents pending the outcome of Trump’s legal challenges, not attempting to defraud officials.  

Observers note that Ford, a Democrat currently running for governor, has made the prosecution a high-profile effort even as state lawmakers’ attempts to specifically criminalize such conduct were vetoed by Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo. 

The judge’s finding that the attorney general’s office withheld exculpatory evidence raises fresh questions about the handling of the grand jury process and the strength of the original indictment.  The six defendants have consistently denied any criminal intent, portraying their actions as a transparent exercise of political speech and legal preservation rather than a clandestine scheme. 

With Holthus’s second dismissal, the long-running case now returns to the Nevada Supreme Court for yet another review.