LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — It's been more than four years since a group of six Nevada Republicans signed a set of fake Electoral College certificates, falsely asserting then-President Donald Trump won the 2020 election.
Although the Legislature passed a bill by state Sen. Skip Daly, D-Washoe County, in 2023 to make signing fake election certificates illegal, Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed it.
On Tuesday, Daly will try again, introducing a new bill that appears written to overcome Lombardo's 2023 objections. It was heard at an afternoon hearing of the Senate Legislative Operations and Elections Committee in Carson City.
In 2020, six Republicans met in Carson City and held a ceremony to sign the fake Electoral College certificates. Although a lawsuit claiming fraud in the 2020 election had been heard and dismissed by the Nevada Supreme Court, the electors said they believed there was still a chance Trump could be declared the winner.
Later, it was revealed that memos written by Trump campaign officials coordinated fake certificates in several swing states, in the mistaken belief that then Vice-President Mike Pence could either choose to accept the fake certificates or, at the very least, send the votes back to the states for reconsideration.
Pence refused and the legitimate votes were counted, awarding the presidency to the actual winner, Joe Biden.
In 2023, the Nevada Legislature passed a law introduced by Daly on a nearly party-line vote to make signing fake Electoral College certificates a felony crime. Attorney General Aaron Ford told lawmakers that no law directly addressed the crime of signing fake certificates.
Lombardo said in his veto message that its penalties were too harsh. According to the governor, high-level fentanyl traffickers and some domestic violence perpetrators would not be punished as harshly as fake electors.
After the 2023 session adjourned, Ford presented a case to a Clark County grand jury, alleging that the Republicans who signed the fake certificates had violated two other state laws, once that banned filing false instruments and another that criminalized "uttering a forged instrument."
A Clark County judge in June dismissed the case, saying it should have been filed in Northern Nevada, where the alleged crimes occurred. Ford appealed the dismissal to the Nevada Supreme Court but also re-filed the forged instrument charges in Carson City. (A statute of limitations on the filing of a false instrument case has since lapsed.)
WATCH: Fake elector case from 2020 presidential election dismissed in Clark County
The appeal and the Carson City criminal case are pending.
Changes made after veto
A comparison of Daly's 2023 bill and the one that will be heard today shows significant differences in terms of penalties.
The old bill made signing fake Electoral College certificates a category B felony, punishable by four to 10 years in state prison and a fine of up to $5,000. It would have denied probation to people convicted under the statute and banned them from being elected or appointed to public office or holding a job in state or local government in Nevada.
And while Nevada law generally restores the civil rights of people after they've served their sentence and completed probation, Daly's old bill continued the ban on holding office, even after a sentence was served.
But today's bill makes changes that will likely address Lombardo's objections. (Besides Lombardo, two prominent state Senate Democrats — Melanie Scheible and James Ohrenschall, both D-Clark County — voted no on the Daly bill, in part because of the penalties.)
Now, it would be a category D felony to sign fake certificates, punishable by one to four years in state prison and a fine of up to $5,000. Probation would be possible, but a person convicted under the law would still have to spend at least six months in a county jail.
The lifetime prohibition on being elected or appointed to public office would still apply, but there would be no bar to employment by state or local government.
The bill contains a new provision prohibiting submitting any election documents that contain false signatures, violations of which would be considered a category C felony, with a penalty of one to five years in state prison and a $5,000 fine.
"The governor did say in his veto message that there should be strict punishments for those engaged in schemes — his word — to present slates of false electors," Daly said. "I am ever hopeful that our governor will accept these good faith changes and sign into law [Senate Bill] 102 so that our citizens can know that there will be law and order in Nevada for what the governor called in his veto message 'a terrible crime.'"
Representatives of Nevada progressive groups — All Voting Is Local Action and Battle Born Progress — testified in favor of Daly's bill, while representatives of conservative groups such as the Independent American Party and Nevada Families for Freedom opposed it.
The bill now faces a committee vote; it faces an April 11 deadline to pass.
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