Conservative group that challenged Georgia voter eligibility didn't violate Voting Rights Act: judge

A judge in Georgia ruled this week that the conservative election group True the Vote did not violate the Voting Rights Act by challenging the eligibility of more than 360,000 Georgia voters before the 2021 Senate runoff elections.

Fair Fight, an organization founded by former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, sued the Texas-based nonprofit last year, alleging that the group used voter intimidation tactics when it challenged the eligibility of hundreds of thousands of ballots prior to the contests.

"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," U.S. District Judge Steve Jones wrote in the ruling. 

Election laws in Georgia allow a local voter to challenge the eligibility of another voter if they suspect that person no longer lives in the county. There is no limit to the amount of voter eligibility challenges allowed in the state, the Georgia Recorder reports. 

Jones did criticize the group's tactics when it came to compiling the list of voters to challenge. 

"(True the Vote's) list utterly lacked reliability. Indeed, it verges on recklessness," he wrote. "The Court has heard no testimony and seen no evidence of any significant quality control efforts, or any expertise guiding the data process."