AG: New Mexico ‘fake electors’ avoid prosecution

Five Republican electors who submitted certificates to Congress falsely declaring Donald Trump the winner of the state’s 2020 presidential election cannot be prosecuted “under current law,” the state’s top prosecutor said Friday.

The electors designated by the New Mexico Republican Party acted with “reckless disregard, and their actions were misleading and dangerous,” but will not face criminal charges, according to a report issued by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez.

The decision means that New Mexico will not join at least three other states seeking felony charges against so-called “fake electors” in those states.

Torrez also sent a letter to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Friday, urging her to seek legislation this year to “provide clear legal authority for prosecuting similar misconduct in the future.”

Steve Pearce, chairman of the Republican Party of New Mexico, responded Friday that New Mexico faced “election challenges” in 2020 that could have ended in court.

New Mexico’s Republican electors cast their votes by the deadline required by federal statute “in the event the election outcome changed,” Pearce said in a written statement.

“AG Torrez agrees that the Republican electors did not violate the law, but now he wants to criminalize the process used by both Democrats and Republicans,” he said. “New Mexicans are tired of Democrats’ unproductive stunts that are a diversion from the real issues affecting our state and the actual assaults being waged on New Mexicans’ constitutional rights by the Democrat Party.”

The 28-page report issued Friday found that the five Republican electors signed a certificate on Dec. 14, 2020, showing that Trump won New Mexico’s five electoral votes.

Investigators found that Trump’s campaign provided the false certificate, along with instructions for completing and submitting the document, to the state’s Republican electors.

The certificate, mailed to the National Archives and the U.S. president’s office, “never had any validity” under New Mexico or federal law, the report said.

President Joe Biden received 54.3% of the vote in New Mexico in 2020, outpolling Trump by about 100,000 votes, and received all the state’s electoral votes.

However, “the New Mexico document purported to certify electoral votes only if the signatories were later determined to be the legitimate electors for New Mexico,” the report said.

New Mexico’s Republican electors didn’t receive a draft of the certification until after it had been modified to satisfy the concerns of electors in Pennsylvania, it said.

“This conditional language, combined with the New Mexico fake electors’ understanding of how the document would be used, prevents a prosecution for the violation of New Mexico law,” it said.

Nonetheless, Trump and his team had intended to use the certificate “to disrupt the electoral college process and overturn the legitimate results of the election,” the report said.

Torrez ordered the investigation upon taking office in January 2023 to determine if the electors had committed crimes.

Officials in several other states have sought criminal charges or civil actions against electors who submitted false election certificates.

A Nevada grand jury last month indicted six Republicans on felony charges in connection with false certificates. The indictment followed an investigation by Nevada’s Democratic attorney general. The defendants have pleaded not guilty.

Michigan and Georgia have also filed criminal charges against Republican electors.

In Wisconsin, 10 Republicans settled a civil lawsuit in December, admitting actions intended to overturn Biden’s victory.