Sun file
Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald is shown at a rally for then President Donald Trump on Sept. 10, 2020, in Las Vegas. McDonald is one of the Republican party leaders across multiple states suspected of pushing fake Electoral College documents to overturn President Joe Biden victory in the November 2020 presidential election.
Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022 | 2 a.m.
The Nevada Republican Party and its chairman, Michael McDonald, weren’t disguising their intentions to alter the results of the 2020 presidential election.
In fact, they boldly boosted photos of the act on the party’s official social media.
McDonald and seven other Republican leaders from Nevada staged what they led voters to believe was “brave electors” standing up for what is right by casting their electoral votes for Donald Trump.
The Nevada Republican Party sent the document — titled “Certificate of the Votes of the 2020 Electors from Nevada” — to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., with McDonald’s name in the return address. Republicans in a handful of states went through a similar forged and coordinated process — all with the same misleading and potentially criminal logic.
The problem is that the people in that photo on that cold Carson City afternoon outside the Nevada Legislature weren’t electors, and the meeting had no legal standing. Nevada’s real electors had already certified the state’s election that same day in a remote ceremony, awarding all six of Nevada’s electoral votes to the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden.
It was another failed attempt by Trump allies, who also filed numerous lawsuits in Nevada and nationally challenging the election, to subvert the results in favor of the Republican.
The party issued a press release after the production on Dec. 14, 2020, playing to its inaccurate claim of irregularities that gave Biden the victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election, and admitting to charges that lawmakers are now working to determine the severity of.
“A court of law has failed to meaningfully evaluate the evidence and our law enforcement agencies and government officials have failed to investigate,” the party said in the statement. “This left our electors no choice but to send their votes for President Trump to Congress to make a determination as to who is the rightful victor of Nevada between the dueling votes.”
A year later, state attorneys general are deciding whether any legal lines were crossed.
“Our office has received numerous inquiries regarding some members of the state GOP attempting to award fake electoral votes to former President Donald Trump after the 2020 election,” Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford said in a statement. “While we cannot confirm or deny the existence of an investigation, rest assured that this matter is on our radar, and we take seriously any efforts to rob Nevadans of their votes.”
Those six faux Republican “electors” were McDonald; James DeGraffenreid, a national committeeman and a district-level delegate to the 2016 Republican National Convention; Durward James Hindle III, vice chair of the Nevada Republican Committee; Jesse Law, chairman of the Clark County Republican Party; Shawn Meehan, founder of Guard the Constitution Project; and Eileen Rice of the Douglas County Republicans.
Alternate electors at the event, according to video footage, were Nye County Republican Central Committee Chairman Joe Burdzinski and James Marchant, who now is seeking the GOP nomination for Nevada secretary of state.
Republicans in other states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and New Mexico, took similar actions. The attorneys general in Michigan and New Mexico have referred the matters to federal prosecutors.
“Election laws are the foundation of our democracy and must be respected,” the Democratic New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas said in a statement, according to the Albuquerque Journal. “While review under state law is ongoing, we have referred this matter to the appropriate federal law-enforcement authorities and will provide any assistance they deem necessary.”
Ford said there had been a sustained effort to invalidate the 2020 election, and his office would not accept any efforts to overturn the results. “Voting rights are fundamental to our democratic republic, and we will continue to protect them,” Ford said in the statement.
The Sun attempted multiple times this week to speak with McDonald and the other Republicans involved in the act, but they haven’t returned calls or emails. Hindle, of Virginia City, did answer the phone but declined to comment. He also declined to say whether he took part in the events.
The office of Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, the state’s top election official, also isn’t commenting.
David Damore, professor and chair of the department of political science at UNLV, said the Nevada Republican Party’s submission of those fake electoral votes was “just a stunt” and that a hard case would have to be made to charge them with anything.
“This kind of shows where the party bases are, particularly the Republican Party, and their sort of belief despite all the evidence to the contrary that Trump won,” Damore said. “And the irony, I think, of this whole thing is Republicans actually did a lot better in Nevada under the more liberal voting rules than they probably would have done otherwise.”
The six electors who submitted Nevada’s official election certification to the National Archives were Judith Whitmer, Sarah Mahler, Joseph Throneberry, Artemesia Blanco, Gabrielle D’Ayr and Yvanna Cancela, a former Las Vegas-area state senator.
Nevada follows the Uniform Faithful Presidential Electors Act, which requires electors to vote for the presidential candidate who received the highest number of votes.
Whitmer, the Nevada State Democratic Party chair, said in a statement that she was proud to cast her official vote for Biden, who won Nevada’s six Electoral College votes “fair and square.”
“I would like to think the best of my fellow Nevadans across the aisle and certainly hope that they mailed these votes in an act of symbolic protest, and not out of malicious or fraudulent intent, but given the behavior of far too many of their elected officials, that’s probably too generous,” Whitmer said in the statement.
Regardless, Whitmer said, she has no doubt that the 2020 election was free and fair, and that Biden was elected legitimately.
“I’m proud of the work we’ve done to make sure that all eligible Nevadans, regardless of their party affiliation, have access to the ballot box,” she said.
But if you ask Republicans, they are continuing with the false narrative of a fake election — hence, their fake electors.
The party said, “With disturbing evidence of voter fraud in the state, including double voting, illegal voting, deceased voters casting ballots, and more, there is a legitimate concern over the rightful victor in the Silver State.”
The Nevada Supreme Court saw it differently, unanimously ruling there was no credible evidence of election fraud in Nevada and throwing out the Trump campaign’s court challenge.
