5. Mark Williams

Defendant Mark Williams has lived in Gwinnett County his whole life and owns a printing and mailing company. Tr. 1717:14–21. In December 2020, he was introduced to True the Vote and Catherine Engelbrecht and hired to help with the printing of TTV’s Section 230 challenges to submit to county Boards of Elections. Tr. 1333:3–20. Williams’s company received a $40,000 retainer for this job. Tr. 1345:19–21. He had no role in actually compiling the list of potentially ineligible voters on the challenge list. Tr. 1345:22–25. Nor was he asked to ensure the accuracy of the lists. Tr. 1349:10–14.27 He furthermore did not have any part in Davis’s and Somerville’s Section 230 lists. Tr. 1647:11–15 (Davis testifying that he did not communicate with Williams about filing Section 230 challenges).

Williams knew TTV wanted to challenge a large number of voters and so he introduced TTV to Defendants James Cooper and Ron Johnson, friends of his in the Republican party who “knew a lot of people” and who Williams felt “might be able to help [TTV] on their agenda.” Tr. 1345:12–18. Cooper and Johnson led TTV’s recruitment of volunteer challengers. See Section (II)(B)(1)(b)(6)–(7) infra.

Williams himself ultimately submitted challenges on behalf of TTV in Gwinnett County, challenging 32,000 voters less than 30-days before the Senate runoff election. Tr. 1349:16–21, 1357:17–23; PX 71. In his own submission of the challenges, he was not given the option to remove names off the list and did not recall any discussion about taking names off the list. Tr. 1350:4–18. He did not investigate individual names on the list but did check the number of voters on the Gwinnett County list and confirmed it matched the number obtained in his own assessment of the NCOA data. Tr. 1350:19–1351:13, 1733:10–18. He trusted TTV’s process because he trusted their lists to reflect the NCOA data he had seen himself. Tr. 1351:14–23. He also, in completing the Section 230 print job for TTV, experienced firsthand how they continued to “scrub the list as best they could.” Tr. 1744:2–8.

Williams believed that the eligibility of any voter who was on the NCOA list needed to be questioned. Tr. 1352:5–8. Thus, when Gwinnett County had a hearing on the list of challenge voters he submitted, Williams asked the Board of Elections to consider the challenge and investigate the 32,000 voters on the TTV list. Tr. 1352:9–19. His goal was to question potential wrongdoing by Gwinnett County voters and then if such wrongdoing was actually occurring, then to expose it. Tr. 1356:18–1357:11. Gwinnett County did not ultimately accept Williams’ challenges. PX 105, 63:13–15.

While somewhat intimidated by the instant lawsuit, Williams testified that he would submit Section 230 challenges again as it is a “legal” and “proper” way to address his concerns about the voter file. Tr. 1357:12–16, 1744:14–23. To the best of his knowledge, Williams believed he complied with the law in submitting his Section 230 challenges. Tr. 1744:24–1745:1.

While the Court perceived Defendant Williams’ demeanor in testifying to be disagreeable, nothing in his testimony greatly contradicted itself or prior testimony he had given in this case. It also is fairly consistent with the documentary evidence submitted. Accordingly, the Court finds Williams to be credible and will so weigh his testimony in its decision.