Complaint Targets Group Challenging Georgia Voters

ATLANTA – An election watchdog that has challenged the eligibility of hundreds of thousands of Georgia voters has itself coming under scrutiny.
Texas-based True the Vote is working with the Georgia Republican Party to challenge more than 364,000 Georgians who they say may not qualify to vote in the Jan. 5 runoff election because they may have changed addresses. That effort already has drawn a court challenge from the voting rights group Fair Fight, founded by Democrat Stacey Abrams.
Now True the Vote is the subject of an Internal Revenue Service complaint that says is has violated federal laws prohibiting charities from engaging in political activities. The complaint accuses True the Vote of working with the Republican Party and making partisan statements against Democrats and liberals. And it asks the IRS to revoke True the Vote’s tax-exempt status.
“Charities and nonprofits don’t get to partner with political parties to suppress the vote and engage in political dirty tricks,” said Michelle Kuppersmith, executive director of the Campaign for Accountability, which filed the complaint and bills itself as a nonprofit watchdog organization.
On Monday True the Vote said the IRS complaint has no merit. It said the Campaign for Accountability is “part of a concerted campaign by the left to penalize and to prohibit conservative groups from engaging in efforts to preserve the integrity of our elections.”
“True the Vote is focused on election integrity, not partisan outcomes, and our mission for every legal vote to count is one that should unite, not divide us,” said CEO Catherine Engelbrecht.
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(c)2020 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Atlanta, Ga.)
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