Election integrity activists’ challenge of Georgians’ voting eligibility following the state’s 2020 elections does not constitute voter intimidation, a federal district court ruled on Tuesday.
Writing for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Judge Steve Jones, an Obama appointee, found that True the Vote (TTV) and other election integrity activists’ separate efforts to challenge potentially ineligible Georgia voters ahead of the Peach State’s 2021 Senate runoffs do not violate provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA). The lawsuit against True the Vote and its co-defendants was brought by several Georgia residents and Fair Fight, a left-wing nonprofit founded by Stacey Abrams, Georgia’s 2018 and 2022 Democrat gubernatorial candidate.
“[B]ased on the evidence before [the court], there is insufficient evidence to show voter intimidation or attempted voter intimidation by Defendants against the voters in this case,” Jones wrote. “Not only have Plaintiffs failed to overcome the fact that their actions did not result in any direct voter contact or alone include or direct county Boards of Elections to pursue an eligibility inquiry, but there is no evidence that Defendants’ actions caused (or attempted to cause) any voter to be intimidated, coerced, or threatened in voting.”
Under Georgia law, voters are authorized to “challenge the eligibility of another voter if they suspect that person no longer lives in the county.” The statute, according to Just the News, places “no limit” on “the amount of voter eligibility challenges allowed in the state.”
On Dec. 18, 2020,
