Conservative Group Challenges Claims of Voter Fraud Without Evidence

A conservative vote-monitoring organization contends there’s “more to the story” than is suggested by recent claims alleging the group doesn’t have evidence to support accusations of illegal ballot stuffing that purportedly occurred in Georgia.

Texas-based True the Vote filed several complaints with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in 2021, including one in which the group claimed to have “a detailed account of coordinated efforts to collect and deposit ballots in drop boxes across metro Atlanta” during the November 2020 election and a subsequent January 2021 Senate runoff.

True the Vote’s founder and president, Catherine Engelbrecht, said the group sought to bring issues it uncovered to the proper authorities to investigate. The group never expected to find itself on the receiving end of a subpoena for raising concerns about potential voter fraud.

“There’s so much more to the story,” Engelbrecht told Newsmax.

Last year, a Fulton County Superior Court judge in Atlanta signed an order requiring True the Vote to provide evidence it claimed to have collected, including the names of people who were sources of information, to state elections officials.

While attorneys for the group said it had no names or additional documentary evidence to share, Engelbrecht said that doesn’t mean the group hasn’t provided evidence to support its allegations, as suggested in some reports.

“It’s not just a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question,” she said.

Engelbrecht contends that the group has provided “far more” than what would be necessary for elections officials to conduct their own investigation.

She noted the group provided more than 6,000 documents and geospatial mobile device information from more than 200 devices to support its claims.

“There has been no acknowledgment of what’s already been provided,” Engelbrecht said.

When it comes to providing additional data, she said the group may no longer have in its possession what was requested because it outsourced data collection to outside contractors.

Engelbrecht also noted that the large team the group had in place in 2020 is no longer working on the project.

She added it would take additional time at a tremendous cost to evaluate what data the group could turn over without violating confidentiality requirements.

By bringing attention to the ballot harvesting claims, she said the group never intended to do the job of law enforcement.

“We can only go so far,” Engelbrecht said. “Our job was never to unmask these people.”

True the Vote’s complaint said its investigators “spoke with several individuals regarding personal knowledge, methods, and organizations involved in ballot trafficking in Georgia.”

It said one person, referred to in the complaint as John Doe, “admitted to personally participating and provided specific information about the ballot trafficking process.”

Engelbrecht said the evidence the group handed over was meant to serve as an “opening conversation.”

She argues that only state and federal officials and investigators have the authority to carry out the tasks they are asking the group to perform.

“If we did it, we would be committing crimes,” she said. “It is a Catch-22 we find ourselves in.”

Engelbrecht said the goal of raising election issues was “never about” naming names.

“It was about cell phone devices and video,” she said.

After a judge ordered the group to turn over more information, the group’s attorneys wrote that it “made every additional reasonable effort to locate responsive items,” but handed over nothing additional.

The judge also ordered True the Vote to provide copies of any confidentiality agreements with sources.

The group’s attorneys replied that the group has “no such documents in its possession, custody, or control.”