d. Clair Joseph Martin

Plaintiff also played excerpts from a video deposition taken of Mr. Clair Joseph Martin. At the relevant time, Martin lived in Taliaferro County and had been registered to vote there since 2008. PX 94, 16:12–19. Defendant James Cooper reached out to Martin about serving as a volunteer challenger before the Georgia Senate runoff election. PX 94, 16:20–17:1. Both Martin and Cooper were part of GOP leadership in the State and had only limited familiarity with one another previously. PX 94, 17:2–12. When first presented with the request to be a volunteer challenger, Martin did not know of True the Vote’s involvement and believed the initiative to be related to the GOP. PX 94, 21:13–22. Martin agreed to be the volunteer to submit challenges in Taliaferro County. PX 94, 23:5–19.

Once Martin discovered that this was not a GOP led initiative, he asked to see the list of potentially ineligible voters made by TTV. PX 94, 31:1–13. Cooper sent Martin TTV’s list of Taliaferro County voters sometime in December. PX 94, 46:9–20. From there, he “took a different path to [the] challenge.” PX 94, 38:13–14. He sent the list of 37 names to a member of his GOP leadership and discovered that 3 of the 37 names on the list had already submitted absentee ballots. PX 94, 39:3–10, 49:16–50:2. Martin thereafter opted to make a smaller set of challenges for these 3 individuals. PX 94, 54:1–17.

Martin discovered 2 of the 3 voters challenged were eligible to vote in Taliaferro County, and that the remaining voter (who was ineligible) had already been adequately addressed by the county Board. PX 94, 61:12–65:9; PX 93, 65:10–66:17. These discoveries reinforced Martin’s concern about the TTV list. PX 94, 69:2–8. Martin thereafter withdrew all of his Section 230 challenges. PX 38; PX 39; PX 81.

At trial, Defendants questioned the documentary evidence pertaining to Martin’s Taliaferro County voter challenges, specifically Martin’s letter to the Board of Elections on December 17, 2020, challenging 37 voters. PX 69. Engelbrecht further testified that this letter did not match the form document TTV used to submit challenges. Tr. 1851:4–1852:20. Engelbrecht indicated that it was clear Martin was “also doing individual challenges” and taking actions independent of TTV. Tr. 1852:8–12. In his deposition testimony, Martin clarifies that he drafted this letter and sent it to Cooper “as a draft of what [Martin] was going to send.” PX 93, 91:5–9. He did not ultimately sign or send the letter, however. PX 93, 91:5–14. Engelbrecht admitted that TTV made a submission “at his behest” before they received his withdrawal email. Tr. 1852:13–15. Thus, the Court can credit Engelbrecht’s testimony that this letter did not match TTV’s ordinary document because it was, in fact, not their generic form for challenges—it had been made by Martin and sent to Cooper for review before officially filing it. The Court can also credit Martin’s testimony that TTV submitted, per Engelbrecht’s own admission, a challenge in Taliaferro County using his name.

Martin never discovered how TTV generated its list of challenged voters. PX 94, 50:17–20. In fact, at the time TTV was making challenges in Taliaferro County, Martin “did not know what True the Vote was doing.” PX 94, 56:4–5. When Martin finally reviewed TTV’s submission of the voter challenges TTV made—which he was not copied on—he noted that it looked like a “generic” message sent to every county. PX 94, 56:1–22. Martin in fact did not learn that TTV submitted this challenge until after the litigation in this case had commenced. PX 94, 57:5–15.

The Court finds Martin to be a highly credible witness. His deposition testimony was consistent and informative. He was upfront about his experience with True the Vote and the Section 230 challenge process. Notably, the Court finds Martin to be particularly reliable because while his partisanship affiliation at the time of the Section 230 challenges was more aligned with True the Vote’s interest, Martin still engaged in a deliberate investigation and testified with candor. The Court weighs his testimony heavily in its conclusions.