True the Vote founder and president Catherine Engelbrecht on Tuesday called on Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner, a federal Georgia judge who is also the sister of failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, to recuse herself from the case regarding two Peach State counties and issues related to voter eligibility following the judge’s Monday ruling.
“Judge Gardner’s ruling is wrong on the law, and the glaring conflict of interest – pointed out by Muscogee County – undermines faith in the judicial process,” Engelbrecht said in a statement. Her organization has partnered with electors across the Peach State to ensure election integrity efforts ahead of the January 5 runoff elections.
Engelbrecht’s statement follows Gardner’s Monday ruling in favor of Majority Forward, the organization spearheaded by former Clinton campaign attorney Marc Elias, who is known for seeding election lawsuits across the country. He claimed that the GOP attempted to “disenfranchise” voters in two Georgia counties, Muscogee and Ben Hill, based on unsubstantiated “change-of-address” data.
As Breitbart News reported:
A voter named Ralph Russell brought forth the challenge in mid-December, alleging that he “had compared evidence from publicly accessible voter registration databases to prove that these voters had moved out of Georgia,” per Politico.
Russell reportedly told the board that he believed that the individuals “as a result of registering their name and change of address to a location outside of Muscogee County, removed to another state with the intention of making the new state their residence.”
“Thus, each individual has lost their residence in Muscogee County, and consequently, each individual is ineligible to vote in Muscogee County,” he argued, winning support from the board. The board’s decision would require those on the list to instead cast a provisional ballot as well as show “additional evidence of residency to vote.”
The Ben Hill County board supported a similar challenge from Fitzgerald city council member Tommy Roberts. The challenges are part of True the Vote’s greater effort to expose
\]\\voter fraud across the U.S., particularly on behalf of Georgia voters as the runoffs quickly approach.
The ruling coincided with a motion for Gardner to recuse herself from the case due to her innate ties to Abrams, who has continued to lead Democrat efforts to flip Georgia blue. Defendants also argued that Abrams “has generated significant fundraising for the plaintiff’s organization and Abrams’ own group has filed a case dealing with the exact same issues against True the Vote,” according to True the Vote’s release. Abrams is participating in a “final” grassroots fundraiser alongside Julia Louis-Dreyfus Tuesday evening for Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff to flip Georgia “blue blue blue.”
“Georgia voters have every reason to question a ruling that doesn’t follow the law but does deliver for her sister’s political agenda,” Engelbrecht continued.
“This entire ruling is based on the idea that these challenges are about removing voters from the registration list – a situation where the judge could apply federal law,” she continued, noting that the challenges “wouldn’t remove anyone from the voter registration list.” Rather, the challenges “are the remedy allowed under Georgia state law to verify that a particular voter is eligible to vote specifically in the January 5 runoff election.”
“Federal law doesn’t regulate that, and the judge’s ruling should be overturned,” she said, adding that Gardner’s ruling is based “solely on the point of view of the plaintiffs.”
“The counties involved didn’t even get to have their say. Perhaps a fair hearing in the light of day – as opposed to a decree issued in the dead of night – would have given the judge some insight on what’s really happening in these cases,” she added.
The Georgia Senate runoff elections will determine the balance of power in Congress. Victories for both Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-KY) and David Perdue (R-GA) will allow Republicans to retain their majority in the upper chamber, but duel GOP defeats would split the Senate, ultimately giving Democrats control with a Biden administration in control of the White House.
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