ATLANTA — The trial for a voter intimidation case between two voting groups will begin in a Gainesville courtroom on Thursday.
A judge will hear from liberal voting rights organization Fair Fight in a lawsuit against conservative vote monitoring organization True The Vote.
First filed in 2020, Fair Fight alleges True The Vote and separate parties' efforts to challenge 364,000 Georgia voters caused voter intimidation, violating the Voting Rights Act.
According to the Voting Rights Act, intimidation, threats, or coercion of any person voting or attempting to vote is prohibited.
As listed in the Fair Fight lawsuit, in the weeks leading up to Georgia's 2021 U.S. Senate runoff, True The Vote filed mass voter challenges because the voters no longer resided in the state.
Efforts by True The Vote to challenge mass voters included recruiting volunteers to monitor ballots cast and a $1 million reward to incentivize people to report election fraud.
Mass voter challenges are allowed by citizens, thanks to Georgia law.
"So if you see somebody who's voting and you think that they are ineligible to vote, you as a citizen do have the right to question and challenge their ability to be able to cast a ballot and have it counted in an election," Dr. Andra Gillespie, a political science professor at Emory University explained.
Texas-Based True The Vote's reason behind the voter challenges was to verify that voters were all still living in the state.
Gillespie said that future cases could be informed based on what the court decides.
"What Fair Fight is trying to do is to indirectly take down Georgia election laws that allow individuals to challenge and question whether or not voters have the ability to vote," she said.
If a decision leans in favor of Fair Fight, it could have larger implications regarding whether it's sustainable to allow people to do mass voter challenges in the state, she adds. If a judge delivers a decision in favor of True The Vote - it could lead to more like-minded groups challenging voters by the masses.