Nevada Supreme Court sends 'fake electors' case back to Clark County

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — The yearslong case against six Nevada Republicans who were accused of submitting a bogus certificate that falsely declared President Donald Trump the winner of the state’s 2020 presidential election has been sent back to Clark County, where a jury is more likely to rule against them.

The opinion released Thursday from the Nevada Supreme Court reverses an earlier decision from a state judge who dismissed the case after ruling Clark County was the wrong venue for the case because the alleged crimes had occurred elsewhere in the state. Clark County is home to Las Vegas and leans Democratic.

The higher court's decision to let the case move forward marks a rare win for swing-state efforts to prosecute so-called fake electors who tried to keep Trump in the White House after he lost to Joe Biden in 2020. In Michigan, a judge recently dismissed charges against 15 Republicans who had been charged by that state’s Democratic attorney general, Dana Nessel. The dismissal came after a judge in Arizona sent the fake electors case there back to the grand jury for fuller instructions about what federal law requires.

“Today the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed what we have maintained all along — that Clark County is the proper and lawful venue to prosecute our case, and I am pleased with the court’s decision to overturn the District Court’s dismissal of our case in Clark County," Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford said in a statement.

After the 2020 election, the six electors gathered outside of the Nevada Legislature to sign certificates giving the state’s six electoral votes to Trump, despite former President Joe 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.

Criminal cases were also brought against Republican electors in Michigan, Georgia and Arizona. On Monday, Trump pardoned his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others accused of aiding his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

The defendants have called the case political prosecution. They say they were exercising their First Amendment rights to criticize the state’s election processes.

The six Nevadans, who had pleaded not guilty, include Michael McDonald, the chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, and Jesse Law, the former Clark County Republican Party chairman who was recently ousted in a July election.

A main argument in the case focused on where the alleged crimes occurred. After that ceremony, one of the electors mailed the documents from Douglas County to the archivist of the United States and the president of the Senate in Washington, D.C. It was also sent to the Nevada secretary of state in Carson City and a federal judge in Las Vegas.

Ford argued the case belongs in Clark County because the envelope was sent to Las Vegas, however one of the electors argued that the envelope was redirected to the judge’s chambers in Reno.

The Nevada Supreme Court justices sided with the attorney general’s office, saying in its Thursday opinion that Nevada law does not preclude a venue from being appropriate in multiple counties for the same offense.

Ford, a Democrat, is running for governor in 2026.