Jackson Jambalaya

Remember all of those incident reports filed by True the Vote last week?  Copiah County asked Judge Nancy Atlas to throw them all out of court.  True the Vote submitted 120 pages of incident reports completed by "volunteers".  These "incident reports" include a statement by two volunteers that they could not find the courthouse in Jefferson County as it had a different address than the one listed on the county website.


Copiah County argues:

The Court made it plain at the hearing that these documents would not be received into evidence.

3. These documents are hearsay, have no indicia of reliability, and are nothing more than written statements made by people who did not appear to testify and were not available for cross examination. The statements are not even sworn. There is no information given for the people making the statements, such as who they are, where they live, or what their affiliation is with True the Vote.

True the Vote is a Texas non-profit organization.  The public-interest group states its goal is protecting voter integrity and ensuring fair and honest elections.   True the Vote filed suit against Mississippi Secretary of State Englebert Hosemann, the Mississippi Republican Party, and several counties.  True the Vote claimed it was not allowed to examine "poll books" from the June 3 and June 24 Republican Senate elections without the redaction of the birthdates of registered voters.  It seeks a preliminary injunction in federal court.  All Mississippi federal judges were excused from the case.  Retired Judge Nancy Atlas presides over the case. She required the defendants to submit their briefs and supplements by August 8 and the defendants by August 15.

Kingfish note:  This correspondent sat in the courtroom and watched Judge Atlas say in no uncertain, no vague, no ambiguous, no undefined terms that she was not going to accept "these incident reports."  She plainly stated they were not authenticated, were filled with hearsay, and violated the rules of evidence.  Period. She made it quite clear she wanted sworn testimony or authenticated statements.  The filing of these incident reports makes one wonder if the plaintiffs and their lawyers even heard the judge.  More sloppiness from the attorneys.  They filed in the wrong court.  They didn't even ask for an injunction or temporary restraining order.

The President of True the Vote signed and submitted a sworn statement to the court stating she had "personal knowledge" that the election commissions of nine counties "refused to provide myself and other True the Vote volunteers access to complete voter records. Rather, we were informed that the birthdates of the voters must be redacted."  However, she admitted on cross examination she only visited three counties.   Now the Judge says "do not file this" so of course the plaintiffs file what they were told not to file.  This is not going to end well.