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Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Federal court might revive Georgia lawsuit claiming mass challenges violate Voting Rights Act
Mass voter challenges have been a mainstay in Georgia since the 2020 presidential election, when Democrat Joe Biden narrowly defeated Republican Donald Trump by about 12,000 votes in the state. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder A three-judge federal court panel spent an hour in a downtown Atlanta courthouse Tuesday hearing arguments from attorneys about whether a conservative Texas organization's mass voting challenges during a 2021 runoff violated the federal Voting Rights Act by intimidating minority voters. Plaintiff Fair Fight Action, founded by Stacey Abrams, argued in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit that U.S. District Court Judge Steve C. Jones erred in ruling last year that True the Vote's challenge to 365,000 Georgia voters' eligibility did not constitute intimidation prior to historic Democratic Senate victories in Georgia when Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff prevailed in the Jan. 5, 2021 runoff. At least one of the judges expressed skepticism about the soundness of the lower court ruling. Mass voter challenges have been a mainstay in Georgia since the 2020 presidential election, when Democrat Joe Biden narrowly defeated Republican Donald Trump by about 12,000 votes in the state. According to Fair Fight Action and others who filed suit, True the Vote's actions likely violated the Voting Rights Act by using inaccurate voter registration information and voter intimidation tactics such as posting citizen watchdogs to monitor people casting ballots. On Tuesday, the federal panel peppered the attorneys with questions while acknowledging the case's national significance on voting rights protections. Attorney Jake Evans, representing True the Vote, asserted that the intent behind the mass challenges was to protect election integrity. Evans said that the mass challenging of voters' eligibility prior to the 2021 runoff did not amount to voter intimidation. Fair Fight's attorney, Uzoma Nkwonta of the Elias Law Group, argued that although Jones acknowledged recklessness in his ruling, the district court erred in not following the generally accepted standard for taking a substantial step towards the course of action that led to the injury. Nkwonta referenced the Muscogee County election board having to take up more than 4,000 challenged ballots from the 2020 November general election based on faulty national change of address data. 'Not only was it foreseeable, it's exactly what True the Vote wished for and exactly what True the Vote demanded,' Nkwonta said. 'True the Vote issued press releases, prepared one-pagers, considered suing counties and did everything in their power to force (Muscogee) County to take the very action that they took.' 'The voter intimidation statutes have been enforced since the 1960s and even earlier, and they often involve cases in which individuals were applying laws or taking actions that were permissible in every other scenario, but were impermissible because they were intimidating voters,' Nkwonta said. Evans said that over the course of a seven-day trial the voters who testified did not provide proof of how they were intimidated by True the Vote. He argued the plaintiffs have failed to prove a violation of the Voting Rights Act. 'An attempted act has to be traceable to the alleged intimidation,' Evans said. 'Here, there are three individual voters where there is no connection. There is no alleged challenger that's submitted to challenge these individuals. It's completely untraceable.' Judge Federico Moreno said he disagreed with Evans stating it was an 'open and shut appeal.' 'I don't know about the substantive 11 B claims, but I think the district court committed legal error with regard to the attempt,' Moreno said, referencing a section of the act that bars voter intimidation. 'Attempt is generally defined, both in civil and criminal law, as the intent to carry out an objective and taking a substantial means toward doing that.' Moreno provided an anecdote about how a bank robber told a teller, 'Give me the money in your drawer' before then being thwarted by a security officer. 'That person has attempted to commit bank robbery, even though he has not stolen the money because he was stopped by a third-party intermediary,' Moreno said. In addition, Moreno questioned Evans about whether an organization that filed several hundred frivolous voter challenges could be considered an attempt to intimidate voters. Evans said that True the Vote did not use tactics to intimidate voters like other cases where robocalls were used to threaten voters or Native Americans were targeted by sending people to follow them into polling places. 'Judge Jones looked at the evidence,' Evans said. 'He evaluated the demeanor of the witnesses. He saw the witnesses testify, evaluated the totality of the evidence, and he made a factual finding in his order that said that there was no intent by True the Vote to intimidate any voter, any witness.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Associated Press
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Federal appeals court may revive lawsuit against conservative group for voter intimidation
ATLANTA (AP) — A federal appeals court appeared inclined Tuesday to revive a lawsuit accusing a conservative group of violating the Voting Rights Act when it announced it was challenging the eligibility of more than 360,000 Georgia voters. The lower court committed 'legal error' in its ruling finding no violation of the Voting Rights Act, 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Adalberto Jordan said at a hearing in Atlanta. Another judge on the panel, Federico Moreno, seemed to agree, saying the district court judge had failed to conduct a separate analysis of one part of the law. The three-judge panel did not immediately issue a ruling. The panel was considering a lawsuit against Texas-based nonprofit True the Vote by Fair Fight, a group founded by former Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Fair Fight argued True the Vote's mass voter challenge ahead of a 2021 runoff election for two pivotal U.S. Senate seats violated a section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that prohibits voter intimidation. In a 145-page decision last year, U.S. District Judge Steve Jones disagreed, saying the evidence presented during a trial did not show the actions of True the Vote 'caused (or attempted to cause) any voter to be intimidated, coerced, or threatened in voting.' Jones added, however, that the list of voters to be challenged 'utterly lacked reliability' and bordered on 'recklessness.' Jordan and Moreno took issue with Jones' conclusion that True the Vote did not attempt to intimidate voters. Moreno asked an attorney for the group, Jake Evans, whether intimidating voters was the goal of the challenge. Evans said there was no evidence of any desire by True the Vote's co-founder, Catherine Engelbrecht, to intimidate voters, and she had no contact with the challenged voters who testified at trial. Jordan said that argument did not speak to the claim that the group attempted to intimidate voters. 'Attempt does not require success,' he said. Moreno also suggested the 11th Circuit needed to weigh in on such mass challenges for future elections.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Court fight over 2021 Georgia mass voter eligibility challenges heads to federal court
On May 13, 2025, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta will hear a case concerning whether mass voter challenges were used to intimidate minority voters in the 2021 runoff. John McCosh/Georgia Recorder (file) A federal appellate court is set to hear a case Tuesday centered on a five-year debate over whether the national right-leaning group True the Vote used mass voter challenges to intimidate minority voters. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit will hear arguments in a case in which plaintiffs, including a voting rights group founded by Stacey Abrams, contend that the case has national implications. Attorneys from both sides will have 15 minutes to present their cases during Tuesday's hearing. Mass voter challenges have been a mainstay in Georgia since the 2020 presidential election, when Democrat Joe Biden narrowly defeated Republican Donald Trump by about 12,000 votes in the state. According to the Abrams-founded Fair Fight Action and others who filed suit, True the Vote's actions likely violated the Voting Rights Act by using inaccurate voter registration information and voter intimidation tactics such as posting citizen watchdogs to monitor people casting ballots. This case stems from True the Vote's efforts to challenge the voter eligibility of about 385,000 Georgia voters prior to the January 5, 2021 runoff election, when Democrats would take control of the U.S. Senate following historic wins by Georgia Democratic Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. In January 2024, Gainesville U.S. District Court Judge Steve C. Jones concluded last year that Fair Fight did not prove True the Vote's actions constituted voter intimidation prior to the dual Senate runoffs. However, Jones criticized the conservative group's 'reckless' methods in compiling a list of voters. Opponents of mass challenges claim that groups targeting Democratic-leaning counties are misusing the election law to challenge large numbers of voters as ineligible. Many conservatives have argued that voter registration lists need to be purged of ineligible voters, while Democrats and progressive activists have alleged that mass voter challenges aim to intimidate and remove voters who should remain eligible. Fair Fight alleges that True the Vote's list in the 2021 runoff included a disproportionate number of Black, brown, and first-time voters who helped secure the 2020 presidential race for Biden. 'The 385,000 mass challenge in the lead up to the January 5, 2021 runoff was the largest mass challenge ever filed in this way in the country,' Fair Fight CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo said. There's been a debate over whether some new voting rules would improve voter confidence or if they are just attempts to appease Trump supporters who say he lost because of unfounded claims of widespread election fraud. Georgia was at the center of the push to overturn the election results after Trump lost to Biden, becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to lose in Georgia in three decades. Trump's narrow loss was reaffirmed through three counts, including one recount that was done by hand. Multiple recounts and audits after the 2020 election confirmed it was not tainted by widespread fraud. According to state law, county election boards must find sufficient probable cause to move forward with an investigation when a voter does not appear to reside at their registered address, lists a non-residential address on their registration, or has other reasons that could disqualify them. True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht said her group will argue that their tactics promote fair elections when they return to Georgia court Tuesday. 'This isn't just about one hearing — it's about holding the line for election integrity and defending the voice of we the people,' she said in a statement. 'Our legal team is locked in, sharpening every detail of our strategy. Our fight is to expose truth, uphold principle, and bring transparency to a process.' Marc Elias, an attorney with Elias Law Firm and founder of left-leaning Democracy Docket, argues that the mass voter challenges in the True the Vote case are an egregious violation of Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act, which guarantees that voters will not face intimidation during the voting process. 'Now, courts have been chipping away against lots of the federal voting rights protections. I'm not going to sugarcoat that,' Elias said. 'That has been true at the U.S. Supreme Court. It's been true at the lower levels. But the fact is attempts to intimidate voters is still illegal, and 11 B is still goo valid law throughout the country.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
