Make it illegal to try to bypass voters’ will
Attorney General Raúl Torrez likely disappointed many Democrats when he decided five New Mexico Republicans broke no state laws by signing election certificates that falsely declared Donald Trump had won the 2020 presidential vote.
The five may be fake electors, but in New Mexico, at least, they are not potential criminals.
Many Democrats had been clamoring for the five GOP electors to be prosecuted. Their intent, after all, was to upend the legitimate results of the presidential election, won by President Joe Biden. Biden trounced the former president handily in New Mexico, winning the state with a margin of 11 percentage points.
This race was not subject to recounts or legal challenges that might have changed the outcome. A false slate, even under a charitable lens, was unnecessary. But in truth, there were sinister undertones: It was part of a more elaborate plot to throw the results of the election into question so fake slates of electors in seven states could throw the victory to Trump.
In some of those states, electors are being indicted. Not in New Mexico.
After months of review, Torrez found New Mexico’s state law apparently doesn’t make it a crime to submit a slate of electors claiming the actual winner lost. He does recommend the law be changed so that this sort of scheme can’t happen again.
The idea behind having a contingent slate of electors declaring Trump the winner came from the ex-president’s advisers, one more way to keep him in power. In New Mexico, the electors specifically indicated their votes would go to Trump “on the understanding that it might be later determined that we are the duly elected and qualified electors.” That was also the case in Pennsylvania, where electors hedged their language.
In other states, fake electors are facing criminal charges, including Georgia and Michigan. Santa Fe lawyer John Eastman also has been indicted in Georgia; he is among those accused of working to help Trump remain in office despite losing the election.
It is the concerted effort across the seven states, with fake slates of electors ready to weigh in, that remains cause for concern. This action wasn’t a rogue slate of electors or a single elector deviating from a state’s winning candidate because of conscience or to make a point.
This was a conspiracy to reverse an election. Under our system of elections, state electors choose the president, with their votes generally reflecting the winner in their state.
Had the certification of the 2020 presidential election been held up in Congress by Vice President Mike Pence — as Trump desired — the false slates of electors could have weighed in, potentially overturning the results.
Torrez is correct to say New Mexico law should be expanded to prevent a potential repeat of this scheme. He recommends expanding the current prohibition against falsified election documents to include the certificates related to presidential electors. He also is calling for a new law that would make it a crime to falsely act as a presidential elector. Those are reasonable safeguards to secure our elections.
In 2020, the GOP claimed a false slate was necessary due to court challenges that could have flipped the state presidential results in New Mexico. It was an absurd notion then and remains so. There was no need for a false slate of electors. New Mexico’s election was fairly run. The results were accurate and verifiable, the beauty of using paper ballots that can be checked and rechecked.
The lawsuits filed in New Mexico and across the country were designed to sow confusion and spread the lie that Trump lost the election because of fraud. They lacked legal merit, as Trump’s overwhelming defeat in courts across the country showed. Setting up a slate of electors to overturn the will of voters was wrong. Now it should become illegal.