This database consolidates and tracks litigation concerning the effect of the pandemic on election law. The purpose of this tool is to provide an interactive list of relevant cases that can be searched by issue, court, status, and jurisdiction.
Case Details
Majority Forward v. Ben Hill County
Closed
Majority Forward v. Ben Hill County, No. 1:20-cv-00266-LAG (M.D. Ga.) |
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| Case Summary | Plaintiffs, a voter registration nonprofit and registered voter, alleged that True the Vote, a Texas-based organization, was successfully engaging in voter suppression. Plaintiffs contended that True the Vote submitted lists of registered voters whose names purportedly appeared in the United States Postal Service’s National Change of Address (“NCOA”) database, an impermissible basis for a lawful challenge to a voter’s eligibility. Plaintiffs challenged the decisions by both the Ben Hill County Board of Elections and the Muscogee County Board of Elections to sustain True the Vote's challenges to more than 4,000 targeted registered voters. Plaintiffs requested an injunction preventing the Boards from discarding the ballots of the targeted voters, on the basis that doing so violates the NVRA. | |
| Filed | 12/23/2020 | |
| State | Georgia | |
| Type of Court | Federal | |
| Circuit | Eleventh Circuit | |
| Status | Closed | |
| Last Updated | 05/12/2021 | |
| Issue Tag(s) | Other Voter Registration Challenges |
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| Complaint(s) | 12/23/2020: Complaint filed. | |
| Dispositive Ruling(s) | 12/28/2020: Order/Ruling, The court granted a temporary restraining order against the Ben Hill County Board of Elections removing challenged voters from the voter roll. The court held that Section 8(d)(1)(A) of the NVRA clearly states, in relevant part, that a “State shall not remove the name of a registrant from the official list of eligible voters in elections for Federal office on the ground that the registrant has changed residence unless the registrant... confirms in writing that the registrant has changed residence to a place outside the registrar's jurisdiction in which the registrant is registered.” The targeted voters did not provide this confirmation, so their removal violates the NVRA. | |
| 12/30/2020: Order/Ruling, The court issued a preliminary injunction against another named defendant, the Muscogee County Board of Elections, from upholding a challenge to any voter’s eligibility solely on the basis of information in the NCOA registry. It dissolved the TRO of 12/28 against Ben Hill County. | ||
| 01/04/2021: Order/Ruling, In its final order in the case, the court held that plaintiff failed to prove it would succeed on the merits of its NVRA claim against Ben Hill. The court held that plaintiffs did succeed in their claim against Muscogee County, that defendants violated the NVRA by failing to conduct the requisite individualized inquiry required for challenges made within 90 days of a federal election. | ||
