Trial begins right now in NAACP Colorado, League of Ladies Voters of Colorado, and Mi Familia Vota v. United States Election Integrity Plan; plaintiffs argue that USEIP’s door-to-door intimidation marketing campaign violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871
DENVER – Trial begins right now in federal courtroom in Colorado to cease an unlawful marketing campaign to intimidate voters. The Colorado Montana Wyoming State Space Convention of the NAACP (NAACP Colorado), League of Ladies Voters of Colorado (LWVCO), and Mi Familia Vota (MFV), represented by Free Speech For Individuals and Lathrop GPM, are suing the founders and leaders of america Election Integrity Plan (USEIP), an extremist group with ties to the January sixth Capitol Riot. The named particular person defendants are Shawn Smith, Ashley Epp, and Holly Kasun. The lawsuit, primarily based on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, seeks federal courtroom intervention to cease USEIP’s leaders’ voter intimidation marketing campaign in Colorado, the place the group’s brokers, a few of whom are armed, have used public voter lists to go door-to-door interrogating voters.
Throughout trial, plaintiffs will display that the Defendants’ door-to-door marketing campaign — which Defendants extensively publicized — tried to and did intimidate voters and compelled the plaintiff voting organizations to divert their already scarce assets towards defending voters from intimidation.
On January 3, 2023, the US Division of Justice submitted a authorized temporary declaring help for the plaintiffs’ authorized arguments within the case.
USEIP’s “County & Native Organizing Playbook” (the “Playbook”), a public doc that units forth the group’s rules and objectives, instructs contributors on the door-to-door marketing campaign, and contains express references to USEIP being engaged in a combat or a battle, display that the group’s leaders’ efforts tried to and did threaten and intimidate voters, purportedly so as to help debunked claims of election fraud.
“Defendants’ goals are clear. By planning to, threatening to, and truly deploying armed brokers to knock on doorways all through the state of Colorado, USEIP is engaged in voter intimidation,” the plaintiffs state of their grievance.
“USEIP’s public-facing actions are a transparent sign to Colorado voters—particularly voters of colour—that to train their constitutional rights and vote in an upcoming election means going through interrogation by doubtlessly armed and threatening USEIP brokers at their doorstep,” the plaintiffs continued.
USEIP’s intimidation efforts notably impression communities of colour, which have traditionally confronted institutionalized boundaries, violent threats, and intimidation for exercising their proper to vote.
The voting rights organizations search to dam the defendants from finishing up additional intimidating door-to-door campaigns main as much as and after the November 2024 election and main as much as and after every other subsequent election.
