A federal judge in Denver ruled against the plaintiffs in a voter intimidation lawsuit Thursday, ending a trial early after finding the organizations behind the suit hadn’t presented sufficient evidence against a group of Donald Trump supporters.
U.S. District Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney issued her ruling Thursday morning. The trial had started Monday, more than two years after the lawsuit was filed by a trio of voting and civil rights organizations, including the local chapters of the NAACP and the League of Women Voters, against the U.S. Election Integrity Plan.
That group, made up of supporters of the Republican former president and tied to prominent and discredited election conspiracy theorists, had been accused of questioning residents of high-density areas and places where ethnic and racial minorities live about their votes.
The lawsuit said the group, which has made false claims of mass voter fraud, also photographed voters’ homes as part of a pattern of “door-to-door voter intimidation.”
But Sweeney found that the evidence and testimony presented by the plaintiffs at trial to prove intimidation were insufficient, according to Colorado Newsline, which first reported the ruling Thursday morning. The defense had made a motion to end the trial early. Sweeney was appointed to the bench by Democratic President Joe Biden.
“We are disappointed in this ruling and are exploring all appeal options,” said Courtney Hostetler, one of the attorneys representing the civil and voting rights groups, in a statement.
Cameron Powell and Michael Wynne, attorneys for one of the three defendant members of the election group, praised the decision Thursday morning. They said the allegations against their client were related to speech, not any actual conduct.
Wynne said the three members of the group had been “dragged through the mud” by the lawsuit.
The case relied in part on a post-Civil War anti-Ku Klux Klan law that sought to protect Black voters who were being intimidated from using the ballot box by white Americans.
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