Stacey Abrams’s ‘Big Lie’ Loses in Court

Ms. Abrams has argued that her stolen election theories are nothing like President Trump’s. “My point was that the access to the election was flawed,” she said last month, “and I refuse to concede a system that permits citizens to be denied access. That is very different than someone claiming fraudulent outcome.” How inconvenient for her that last week, amid her grudge match against Gov.

Brian Kemp,

a federal judge rejected a lawsuit accusing Georgia, more or less, of voter suppression.

The case was brought soon after the 2018 election by Fair Fight Action, a group tied to Ms. Abrams. The ruling by Judge

Steve Jones,

summarizing years of litigation, says that many of the claims were dismissed earlier under summary judgment, some of them on the merits. The surviving complaints included those aimed at Georgia’s alleged “mismanagement of the statewide voter registration list,” as well as its “Exact Match policy.” These were aired during a 21-day trial with more than 50 witnesses.

“Although Georgia’s election system is not perfect,” the judge says, “the challenged practices violate neither the Constitution nor the VRA,” meaning the Voting Rights Act. For the record, Judge Jones was appointed by President

Obama.

The details get complicated, but to dig into one piece, the “Exact Match” argument involved Georgia’s practice of cross-checking new voter registrations with information from other databases. If “Jonathan William Smith registers to vote as Billy Smith,” the judge explains, that voter’s record is automatically flagged.

Then Billy Smith is sent a letter advising him of the mismatch. Yet he’s still considered a registered voter. He can show up at the polls, hand over an ID like anybody else, and cast a ballot. If he votes absentee, his mail ballot is provisional until he verifies his ID. About 60,000 people in 2020 were flagged this way, 69% of them black. Is this unconstitutional?

The judge says no. Though mismatches could result from mere typos or bad penmanship, the burden on voters is “relatively low.” Moreover, Judge Jones says the plaintiffs gave no evidence that anyone flagged this way was “unable to vote” or otherwise meaningfully inconvenienced. Georgia, on the other hand, showed “that the State’s compelling interest in preventing voter fraud is tied to the challenged practice.”

The ruling goes on like this for 288 pages. Is Georgia’s process for verifying citizenship a serious burden on voters? No. Does the state have a compelling interest in it? Yes. Ditto for its use of records to remove dead voters. In contrast, Judge Jones says the process for flagging felons is burdensome for voters, some of whom end up misidentified. But who’s at fault?

The state’s job is to compare the voter rolls with its corrections databases and then provide counties with lists of possible matches. Judge Jones politely suggests some of this matching isn’t precise enough. In any event, the responsibility is on county officials to investigate and then make the final call. One voter mentioned in the ruling has repeatedly protested to the Fulton County registrar that he isn’t a felon. Alas, suing Democratic Fulton County wouldn’t advance Ms. Abrams’s narrative.

The political debate is full of rhetoric about how American elections are untrustworthy due to either voter fraud or voter suppression. It isn’t true, and the thing about federal courts is they demand evidence. Ms. Abrams doesn’t have it, despite telling the public in 2018 that she was robbed. Don’t expect her to recant any more than Mr. Trump will, but the state of Georgia deserves apologies from both.