October 26, 2023 at 12:10 am EDTFILE - Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams faces off with Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in a televised debate, Oct. 30, 2022, in Atlanta. 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. ATLANTA — — On the eve of a critical 2021 election for U.S.
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.
Attorneys for True the Vote accuse Fair Fight in court documents of an “overly dramatic narrative,” saying the challenges were allowed by Georgia law and that the money True the Vote announced was a legal fund for whistleblowers. The mention of Navy SEALs reflected Engelbrecht's “musings on volunteer help at polls from readily recognizable veterans of honor familiar with detail and the chain of command” and did not materialize, according to court documents.