Georgia’s voter-challenges law to face a court test

A federal judge will decide whether voter eligibility challenges lodged against hundreds of thousands of Georgians infringed on their rights.

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones ruled that a trial can go forward in a lawsuit pitting the voting rights group Fair Fight Action against True the Vote, a Texas-based organization that contested more than 300,000 voter registrations before the state’s U.S. Senate runoffs in 2021.

Jones said in an order that a trial is needed to decide whether True the Vote’s efforts to disqualify voters amounted to voter intimidation in violation of the Voting Rights Act. County election boards dismissed almost all the challenges.

Fair Fight Action alleges that True the Vote targeted racial minorities, offered a $1 million “bounty” for voter challengers, recruited Navy SEALs to oversee polling places and published challenged voters’ names.

True the Vote says its challenges were nondiscriminatory, the “bounty” money was intended for legal defense, voters were never directly contacted and Georgia law allows voter challenges.

Catherine Engelbrecht, the founder of True the Vote, is looking forward to the group’s day in court.

“This is a huge opportunity for us to tell the full story of what led True the Vote to help electors file voter challenges in Georgia,” Engelbrecht wrote in an email to supporters.

Engelbrecht’s opponents are also preparing.

“Our trial will focus on what matters: the protections promised by the Voting Rights Act and how we contend True the Vote violated those protections at the expense of Georgia voters,” Fair Fight PAC Executive Director Cianti Stewart-Reid said.

Fair Fight began opposing voter eligibility challenges in court in December 2020.

UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA SCHOOL OF LAW U.S. District Judge Steve Jones has cleared the way for a trial in a suit pitting voting rights group Fair Fight Action against True the Vote, a Texas-based organization.