{"id":225,"date":"2021-03-31T09:55:55","date_gmt":"2021-03-31T13:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/georgia\/press-releases\/true-the-vote-and-georgia-republican-party-violated-campaign-finance-laws-by-illegally-coordinating-ahead-of-january-senate-runoff-elections\/"},"modified":"2021-03-31T09:55:55","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T13:55:55","slug":"true-the-vote-and-georgia-republican-party-violated-campaign-finance-laws-by-illegally-coordinating-ahead-of-january-senate-runoff-elections","status":"publish","type":"press","link":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/georgia\/press\/true-the-vote-and-georgia-republican-party-violated-campaign-finance-laws-by-illegally-coordinating-ahead-of-january-senate-runoff-elections\/","title":{"rendered":"True the Vote and Georgia Republican Party Violated Campaign Finance Laws by Illegally Coordinating Ahead of January Senate Runoff Elections"},"template":"","class_list":["post-225","press","type-press","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","press_type-press-release"],"acf":{"details":{"summary":"Today, Campaign Legal Center Action and Common Cause Georgia filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that during the lead up to the Georgia Senate runoff elections, the Georgia Republican Party illegally coordinated with True the Vote.","featured_image":5062,"press_type":145,"authors":["{\"site_id\":\"1\",\"post_type\":\"person\",\"post_id\":7815}"],"related_issues":[92,100,109,400,402],"related_work":false,"location":13},"sidebar":{"helper_enable_sidebar":false,"helper_media_contact":{"heading":"Media Contact","manually_enter_person":false,"person":null,"name":"","role":"","phone":"","email":""},"helper_links_downloads":{"heading":"Links & Downloads","links":null}},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_wysiwyg":{"content":"

True the Vote illegally made, and the Georgia Republican Party illegally accepted, in-kind contributions.<\/em><\/h3>\r\nWashington, D.C. <\/strong>\u2013 Today, Campaign Legal Center Action (CLCA) and Common Cause Georgia filed a complaint<\/a> with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that during the lead up to the Georgia Senate runoff elections, the Georgia Republican Party illegally coordinated with True the Vote.\r\n\r\nIn December\u00a0 2020, True the Vote, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, stated<\/a> that it had received a request from the Georgia Republican Party for assistance with the 2021 Senate runoff election, and announced through a press release<\/a> a partnership with the party to provide services in connection with the election. In the press release Georgia Republican Party Chairman, David Shafer said, \u201cWe are grateful for the help of the True the Vote team in the fight for election integrity,\u201d and \u201cThe resources of True the Vote will help us organize and implement the most comprehensive ballot security initiative in Georgia history.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe services True the Vote provided included a voter hotline, ballot-curing support, signature verification training and absentee ballot drop box monitoring. Federal law prohibits a corporation like True the Vote from coordinating with a political party on any expenditures made, \u201cin connection with an election.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cTrue the Vote stated publicly that it was coordinating its election activities with the Georgia Republican Party, and as a result, both violated federal campaign finance law,\u201d said Brendan Fischer, CLCA director of federal reform<\/strong>. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if True the Vote expressly urged voters to elect Republicans, the relevant legal question is whether True the Vote spent money \u2018in connection with an election\u2019 and coordinated that spending with the Georgia Republican Party. The evidence shows that it did.\u201d\r\n\r\nCampaign finance law treats coordinated expenditures as in-kind contributions. A corporation like True the Vote is prohibited from contributing to a party committee. By True the Vote coordinating its spending with the Georgia Republican Party, it illegally made in-kind contributions to the party, and the party illegally accepted those contributions.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe pattern was clear, in the voting challenges,\u201d said Common Cause Executive Director Aunna Dennis<\/strong>. \u201cIn Floyd County<\/a>, the GOP vice chairman \u2018filled out the form letter provided by True The Vote\u2019 to challenge voters. In Cobb County<\/a>, the voter challenges were filed by the county GOP chair. The Muscogee County voter challenges<\/a> were filed \u2018on behalf of\u2019 the county GOP. In Gwinnett County<\/a>, the challenges were made by the Assistant Secretary of the state GOP. This was a coordinated campaign to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Georgians before the January Senate runoffs.\u201d\r\n\r\nCorporations are not supposed to act as an arm of a campaign or political party, and since coordinated spending is just as valuable to a party as direct contributions, coordination between outside spenders and a political party is illegal. The FEC, which is the only government agency whose sole responsibility is overseeing the integrity of our political campaigns, must investigate and hold all parties accountable for their blatant disregard for campaign finance laws.\r\n\r\nRead the complaint here<\/a>."}}]},"yoast_head":"\nTrue the Vote and Georgia Republican Party Violated Campaign Finance Laws by Illegally Coordinating Ahead of January Senate Runoff Elections - Common Cause Georgia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/georgia\/press-releases\/true-the-vote-and-georgia-republican-party-violated-campaign-finance-laws-by-illegally-coordinating-ahead-of-january-senate-runoff-elections\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"True the Vote and Georgia Republican Party Violated Campaign Finance Laws by Illegally Coordinating Ahead of January Senate Runoff Elections\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/georgia\/press\/true-the-vote-and-georgia-republican-party-violated-campaign-finance-laws-by-illegally-coordinating-ahead-of-january-senate-runoff-elections\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Common Cause Georgia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/georgia\/press-releases\/true-the-vote-and-georgia-republican-party-violated-campaign-finance-laws-by-illegally-coordinating-ahead-of-january-senate-runoff-elections\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/georgia\/press-releases\/true-the-vote-and-georgia-republican-party-violated-campaign-finance-laws-by-illegally-coordinating-ahead-of-january-senate-runoff-elections\/\",\"name\":\"True the Vote and Georgia Republican Party Violated Campaign Finance Laws by Illegally Coordinating Ahead of January Senate Runoff Elections - 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