FILE - Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams faces off with Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in a televised debate, Oct. 30, 2022, in Atlanta. A lawsuit that plaintiffs say could deter mass voter challenges around the country ahead of the 2024 election is headed to trial in Georgia on Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023. A group associated with Abrams accuses Texas-based True the Vote of trying to intimidate voters ahead of a 2021 Senate runoff election in Georgia.
A ruling against True the Vote could deter similar mass challenges in Georgia and other states, attorneys for plaintiff Fair Fight say. They are specifically asking Jones to bar True the Vote from operating in Georgia and initiating any challenges in the future in the battleground state that President Joe Biden won by roughly 12,000 votes in 2020.
True the Vote announced the voter challenges just after early in-person voting began for the January 5, 2021, runoff election for Georgia’s two U.S. Senate seats. At the time, Trump and his allies were spreading“While local officials feared for their lives and false cries of a stolen presidential election whipped across Georgia like a wildfire, Defendants kept lighting matches,” Fair Fight said in a May court filing.
To further deter voting in the Senate runoffs, Engelbrecht publicized a million-dollar bounty for reports of election-related wrongdoing and said she would send Navy SEALs to polling places, Fair Fight said in the May 25 court filing.