Pro-Trump Group Must Face Colorado Voter Intimidation Lawsuit

A voter intimidation lawsuit against a group falsely claiming Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election is moving forward after a Colorado federal judge declined to dismiss the Voting Rights Act case on standing grounds.

The plaintiffs—affiliates of the NAACP and League of Women Voters, along with Mi Familia Vota—have organizational standing to sue the pro-Trump U.S. Election Integrity Plan and related defendants under the Voting Rights Act, Chief Judge Philip A. Brimmer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado held. These organizations are dedicated in part to protecting voting rights, and they adequately alleged that they were forced to divert resources from their primary activities in order to monitor and combat the defendants’ purportedly unlawful activities, Brimmer said.

The defendant election group disputed NAACP’s standing, arguing that any actions it took were “volitional” and “a product of fear rather than actual injury.”

Brimmer agreed that a “voluntary budgetary decision” isn’t enough to create organizational standing. But here, NAACP claims it has already expended time and money fighting the group’s conduct and has suffered a “drain on resources that could have been used elsewhere,” he said, noting that other courts have found standing in similar circumstances.

USEIP formed after the 2020 presidential election and focused on advancing the false claim that Trump lost that election because of election fraud. According to Brimmer’s opinion, the members of the group travel door-to-door—sometimes while armed and wearing badges—to interrogate voters under the pretense of seeking to discover “phantom ballots” that the group says caused Trump’s loss. The group focuses its activities on “high-density housing, communities experiencing growth among racial minority voters,” and communities with a high percentage of Democratic voters, according to the ruling.

Brimmer’s opinion, issued Thursday, comes three weeks after he denied the organizations’ request for a temporary restraining order. In that ruling, he said the organizations hadn’t shown the necessary imminent harm because they didn’t claim the defendants’ alleged activities were current and ongoing.

The plaintiffs, which include the Colorado Montana Wyoming State Area Conference of the NAACP and League of Women Voters of Colorado, are represented by Clements Law, Lathrop GPM LLP, and Free Speech for People.

The defendants are represented by Reisch Law Firm LLC.

The case is Colo. Mont. Wyo. State Area Conf. of the NAACP v. U.S. Election Integrity Plan, D. Colo., No. 1:22-cv-00581, 4/28/22.