Election integrity advocates recently had a very important win when a federal district court ruled that challenging the eligibility of thousands of voters in Georgia did not constitute “voter intimidation.”
Back in 2020, True the Vote, Derek Somerville and I, and three other activists were all sued by Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight organization for allegedly violating the Prohibited Acts section of the Voting Rights Act. We had independently organized two different sets of challenges to voters with residency issues ahead of Georgia’s 2021 U.S. Senate runoff. True the Vote’s challenges were broader in scope than the challenges Derek and I had coordinated, which were narrowly focused on voters who appeared to have already cast ballots with residency issues in the 2020 general election.
When the judge ruled in favor of all the defendants in the case and found that there had “not been any violation of Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act by any of the named Defendants,” we got to experience “the thrill of victory,” and Fair Fight got to experience “the agony of defeat,” which was well deserved for dragging our good names through the mud for three solid years.
While it certainly felt great to finally be exonerated, what exactly did we “win”? We may have bloodied the noses of the schoolyard bullies, but other than walking away satisfied and knowing that they may think twice before coming after us again, what was the point of it all?
What about all the illegal voting the challenges were
