New Mexico, — According to Friday's statement by New Mexico's chief prosecutor, the state's five Republican electors who submitted election certificates fraudulently certifying Donald Trump as the 2020 presidential winner are immune from prosecution under the existing statute.
Nonetheless, Raúl Torrez, the Democratic attorney general, is advising state legislators on measures that would strengthen the safety of the state's voting process and grant the legal power to punish such actions in the future.
Criminal allegations against Trump and his allies revolve around a plot in which Republican electors tried to cast ballots suggesting that Trump had won. New Mexico was one of many states where this attempt was made. Separate investigations were initiated by Democratic authorities in some states, leading to the prosecution of GOP electors.
Several states that were involved in the dispute were found to have filed fake certificates: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
False electors in Pennsylvania and New Mexico included a disclaimer that they may be subsequently acknowledged as legitimate electors if their qualifications were verified. For that to have happened, Trump would have needed to emerge victorious from the dozens of court fights he fought against states in the days following the election.
On Friday, Steve Pearce, chairman of the Republican Party of New Mexico, stated that the state was confronted with many election disputes that might potentially end up in court. Consequently, he stated that the Republican electors had cast their ballots by the date specified in federal law in case the result of the election had changed.
Pearce made the comment, "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." The comment was in reference to the 1960 presidential election, when Democrat electors in Hawaii cast votes for John F. Kennedy, even though that state was initially called for Republican Richard Nixon.
The state of New Mexico had the greatest margin among those states where so-called phony electors were involved in the 2020 presidential election, with President Joe Biden winning by almost 11 percentage points.
As a result of allegations involving fraudulent election certificates, a grand jury in Nevada arrested six Republicans in December on felony counts of providing and uttering a counterfeit document for filing. "Not guilty" is their plea.
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