New Mexico attorney general says fake GOP electors can’t be prosecuted, recommends changes

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New Mexico’s top prosecutor said Friday that the state’s five Republican electors cannot be prosecuted under the current law for filing election certificates that falsely declared Donald Trump the winner of the 2020 presidential race.

However, Democratic Attorney General Raúl Torrez is making recommendations to state lawmakers that he says would enhance the security of the state’s electoral process and provide legal authority for prosecuting similar conduct in the future.

New Mexico is one of several states where fake electors attempted to cast ballots indicating that Trump had won, a strategy at the center of criminal charges against Trump and his associates. Democratic officials launched separate investigations in some states, resulting in indictments against GOP electors.

Fake certificates were submitted in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

In New Mexico and Pennsylvania, fake electors added a caveat saying the certificate was submitted in case they were later recognized as duly elected, qualified electors. That would only have been possible if Trump had won any of several dozen legal battles he waged against states in the weeks after the election.

President Joe Biden won the 2020 vote in New Mexico by roughly 11 percentage points — the largest margin among the states where so-called fake electors have been implicated.

In December, a Nevada grand jury indicted six Republicans with felony charges of offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument, in connection with false election certificates. They have pleaded not guilt.

Michigan’s Attorney General filed felony charges in July 2023 against 16 Republican fake electors,