FIGHTING AGAINST VOTER INTIMIDATION: FAIR FIGHT, INC. V. TRUE THE VOTE
Legal action
Fair Fight, Inc. is challenging the suppressive tactics of Texas-based organization, True the Vote, and its attempts to intimidate thousands of Georgia voters through illegal voter challenges intended to keep Georgians from exercising their fundamental right to vote.
ABOUT THE CASE
In the days and weeks preceding the 2021 runoff elections that ultimately awarded the State’s two United States Senate seats to Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock, Texas-based organization True the Vote and several individuals collaborated to challenge the eligibility of hundreds of thousands of registered Georgia voters. In response to the TTV’s mass challenges and other tactics, Fair Fight filed suit under Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (“VRA”)..
Section 11(b) is a critical piece of the VRA because it outlaws any acts that are objectively likely to intimidate voters. By filing suit against TTV and its collaborators, Fair Fight and several Georgia voters challenged in the 2021 runoffs took a stand against mass challenges like the approximately 365,000 challenges threatened by TTV in December 2020. As relief, Fair Fight and its co-plaintiffs asked the Court to prohibit TTV from engaging in similar tactics in future election cycles.
In addition to alleging that TTV and its collaborators committed unlawful voter intimidation, our suit also contends TTV’s challenges were false and meritless, based on a list of names culled from the U.S. Postal Service National Change of Address (“NCOA”) registry— a notoriously unreliable means of determining voter eligibility. To support our claim that TTV’s challenges were frivolous, we filed with the Court a report from one of our expert witnesses who opined that True the Vote failed to appropriately account for deficiencies in the data and therefore created an overly inclusive and unreliable list of voters to challenge.
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RESOURCES
Documents
- Key Takeaways from Trial Days 4-6
- Key Takeaways from Trial Days 1-3
- ICYMI: Top Takeaways From Fair Fight Press Conference Ahead of Oct. 26 Trial of Fair Fight v. True the Vote
- ICYMI: Fair Fight v. True the Vote Virtual Pre-Trial Press Briefing
- Case Timeline & Key Background
- Fair Fight Announces October 26 Trial Date in Federal Suit Against True the Vote for Alleged Voter Intimidation Ahead of Jan. 5 2021 Runoff Elections
- Amended Complaint
- Order on Plaintiffs’ Motion to Dismiss Defendants’ Counterclaims
- Order on Plaintiffs’ Motion in Limine to Exclude Improper Expert Testimony
- Order on the Parties’ Cross Motions for Summary Judgment
CASE STATUS
After several years of pretrial proceedings and motions, Fair Fight’s trial against True the Vote began on Thursday, October 26, 2023. Over the three-week trial, Fair Fight and its co-plaintiffs presented evidence in support of its claim that True the Vote (TTV) and several individuals intimidated or attempted to intimidate Georgia voters during the 2021 runoff election.
Through trial, we built a record of voter testimony, unrebutted expert opinions, and substantial documentary evidence regarding the impact of mass challenges on voters, the historical use of mass challenges to disenfranchise voters of color, and alleged recklessness with which TTV pursued challenges to over 350,000 registered Georgia voters. We also presented testimony by our own Cianti Stewart-Reid about the work that Fair Fight undertook in response to True the Vote’s actions, and which Fair Fight continues to pursue to help mitigate the impact of mass challenges in our state and nationwide.
The Court issued its 145-page opinion in the case on January 2, 2024. Despite its concern about TTV’s mass challenges, and despite finding TTV’s mass challenges “utterly lacked reliability” and “verge[d] on recklessness,” the Court did not find a violation of Section 11(b) of the VRA and did not prohibit TTV from future challenge activity in Georgia. A copy of the Court’s opinion is available here.
Although the Court did not rule that TTV committed unlawful voter intimidation, it cited the voter and expert testimony exposing the negative impact challenges have had on Georgians and expressed concern about how the state’s mass challenge law was used to challenge hundreds of thousands of voters at once. The Court clearly stated that it did not condone the actions of TTV (Order at 123 n. 60), and the opinion includes extensive criticism about TTV’s methodology for creating its challenge list, ultimately concluding: “It is clear that TTV did not engage in a quality control process to create the [challenge] list, nor did they have proper review or controls in place,” (Order at 91.)
An analysis of the key takeaways from the Court’s opinion is available here.
In the days and weeks preceding the 2021 runoff elections that ultimately awarded the State’s two United States Senate seats to Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock, Texas-based organization True the Vote and several individuals collaborated to challenge the eligibility of hundreds of thousands of registered Georgia voters. In response to the TTV’s mass challenges and other tactics, Fair Fight filed suit under Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (“VRA”)..
Section 11(b) is a critical piece of the VRA because it outlaws any acts that are objectively likely to intimidate voters. By filing suit against TTV and its collaborators, Fair Fight and several Georgia voters challenged in the 2021 runoffs took a stand against mass challenges like the approximately 365,000 challenges threatened by TTV in December 2020. As relief, Fair Fight and its co-plaintiffs asked the Court to prohibit TTV from engaging in similar tactics in future election cycles.
In addition to alleging that TTV and its collaborators committed unlawful voter intimidation, our suit also contends TTV’s challenges were false and meritless, based on a list of names culled from the U.S. Postal Service National Change of Address (“NCOA”) registry— a notoriously unreliable means of determining voter eligibility. To support our claim that TTV’s challenges were frivolous, we filed with the Court a report from one of our expert witnesses who opined that True the Vote failed to appropriately account for deficiencies in the data and therefore created an overly inclusive and unreliable list of voters to challenge.