The yearslong saga over Nevada Republicans’ attempts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results for Donald Trump continued on Wednesday, with the state’s highest court hearing arguments in a case about whether a lower court’s dismissal of forgery charges should be overturned.

During a more than 30-minute hearing in Carson City, the Nevada Supreme Court weighed an appeal from the attorney general’s office after its attempt to prosecute the so-called “fake electors” failed last year because of a dispute on whether Clark County was the appropriate place to hear the case. At Wednesday’s hearing, multiple justices appeared skeptical about hearing the case in Clark County.

The case is one of two final attempts by Attorney General Aaron Ford to prosecute the fake electors, with his office also filing forgery charges last year in Carson City, where the next hearing is scheduled for September. Ford, a Democrat who is running for governor next year,  declined to comment after Wednesday’s hearing.

The six defendants — Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald, Republican National Committeeman Jim DeGraffenreid, former Clark County GOP Chairman Jesse Law, state party Vice Chair Jim Hindle III, Shawn Meehan and Eileen Rice — were indicted on felony charges in 2023 for submitting documents that pledged Nevada’s six electoral votes for Trump even though then-candidate Joe Biden won the state. All six defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges of offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument, which collectively carry punishments of two to nine years imprisonment.

The defendants’ lawyers had argued that the documents were not forged but genuine documents containing “false information.”

Two of the defendants, McDonald and DeGraffenreid, were also hit with congressional subpoenas in 2022.

Read More: Timeline: Four years later, few consequences for Nevada ‘fake electors’

But the issue debated Wednesday is whether the Clark County District Court was an appropriate place to bring the charges. 

In her ruling last summer, Judge Mary Kay Holthus ruled that the valid venue was in Carson City, where the fake electors had held a ceremony proclaiming the state’s six electoral votes to Trump. Ford said at the time that the “judge got it wrong.”

State prosecutors filed the initial charges in Clark County — where a jury makeup would likely be more Democratic than other jurisdictions — because two of the defendants live in Clark County, mail related to the election scheme passed through the county and fraudulent electoral documents were mailed to a federal judge in Las Vegas. 

That final argument was central to Wednesday’s hearing. The fraudulent documents were sent to a federal courthouse in Las Vegas addressed to Chief Justice Miranda Du, but they were transferred to Reno, where Du’s chambers are located.

The state argued that the charges should be filed in Clark County because the defendants mailed the letters to a Las Vegas address and mail passed through the county. When court clerks forwarded the mail to the judge’s Reno address, it “consummated” or completed the crime, attorneys argued.

“The location of the office to which they mailed that document for recording or filing is also the appropriate venue for these crimes," said Jeffrey Conner, a lawyer for the attorney general’s office.

However, Richard Wright, an attorney for one of the defendants, argued that the charges in question do not have to do with where certain fraudulent documents were received.

“Neither require receipt of the documents as an element of the offense,” Wright said.

Multiple justices appeared skeptical of the state’s arguments. Chief Justice Douglas Herndon cited a U.S Supreme Court case that stated the determining factor for where to bring charges is based on where the person received certain elements of the crime, which in this case would be Reno. 

“It seems like we’re contorting ourselves to try to find a venue in Clark County,” Herndon said.

However, Justice Lidia Stiglich appeared more open to Clark County as a venue.

“And the facts, as I understand them, is they accomplished everything they intended to do,” she said. “They sent those documents to Las Vegas to Judge Du, and they were accepted in Las Vegas.”