Fair Fight Action
Fair Fight Action is a non-profit advocacy organization established in 2018 by Stacey Abrams, a prominent Democratic figure in Georgia. The organization focuses on promoting fair elections and increasing voter participation across the United States, particularly highlighting issues of voter suppression that disproportionately affect communities of color. A significant aspect of Fair Fight Action's work involved a legal case known as Fair Fight Action v. Raffensperger, which aimed to challenge restrictive voting policies in Georgia. Although the organization lost the lawsuit in September 2022, it argued that the case was crucial for raising awareness about voting inequities.
Fair Fight Action has also been involved in broader advocacy efforts, including supporting Medicaid expansion in several states and addressing medical debt relief, having helped eliminate over $210 million of medical debt for many individuals in the South. Despite its financial expenditures and the controversies surrounding its legal strategies, the organization maintains that its efforts have brought important attention to systemic voting issues. The responses to its actions reflect ongoing debates about voter rights and election integrity in the U.S.
Fair Fight Action
Fair Fight Action is a non-profit advocacy organization founded in 2018 by Georgia Democratic politician Stacey Abrams. According to the organization’s website, Fair Fight Action promotes fair elections across the United States, encourages voter participation in elections, and educates voters about elections and their voting rights.
The organization took part in a four-year legal battle called Fair Fight Action v. Raffensperger, which challenged Georgia’s electoral system. The organization charged that overly restrictive voting policies disenfranchised voters, mostly people of color. Fair Fight Action lost the lawsuit in September 2022. The organization was called out for the amount of money it spent on the lawsuit as well as the relationship between Abrams and one of the partners of the leading counsel.
Background
Fair Fight Action was first formed after Abrams lost the 2018 Georgia election for governor by a margin of 50.2 to 48.8 percent. Abrams claimed that thousands of voters, many of them people of color, had been disenfranchised because of overly restrictive voting rules. Many other Democratic politicians, such as Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, stood behind these claims. Just days later, Abrams committed herself to a movement that would expose voter suppression. In 2019 and 2020, Fair Fight Action raised more than $61 million, which was more than double the amount raised by any other similar entity in Georgia.
The organization’s public awareness campaigns focused on election reform, particularly regarding voter suppression. Fair Fight Action’s website showed 1.6 million voters were purged from voter rolls from 2010–2018, leaving them ineligible to vote. The organization also calls out more than 53,000 voter registrations held in pending status—80 percent of whom were from voters of color. According to the organization, issues regarding voter suppression included long wait lines at the polls, voters being forced to use provisional ballots that were often not counted, thousands of lost and rejected absentee ballots, and 100,000 votes missing in a 2018 Lieutenant Governor’s race. Many of these issues particularly affected voters of color, according to Fair Fight Action.
The organization also advocates for Medicaid expansion in Wyoming, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Texas, Kansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. These twelve states opted out of expanding Medicaid after the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act granted all fifty states the opportunity to expand the program. This denied 4 million people access to affordable, quality insurance and care, according to Fair Fight Action.
Fair Fight Action has also taken action on medical debt, helping relieve more than $210 million of debt for 108,243 people living in Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Arizona. They accomplished this by working with an organization called RIP Medical Debt. Most of the debt relief was in the organization’s home state of Georgia, where the group helped 68,685 people erase more than $123 million in medical debt.
Topic Today
In October 2022, it was announced that Fair Fight Action spent more than $25 million over two years in legal fees—mostly on a single case. Eight different law firms worked on the case. Lawrence & Bundy, a small law firm, acted as lead counsel and received the most compensation, collecting $9.5 million in 2019 and 2020. Fair Fight Action has maintained that the lawsuit, Fair Fight Action v. Raffensperger, served an important role in drawing attention to voting inequities. According to the organization’s website, the lawsuit demanded improvements to Georgia election systems from top to bottom. Initially filed in November 2018, the suit sought to address several aspects of the Georgia election system that violate various rights, including the right to vote, the ban on racial discrimination in voting, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and Section Two of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
However, some people questioned the level of expenditures that Fair Fight Action devoted to a single unsuccessful legal action. Kathleen Clark, a professor of legal ethics at Washington University in St. Louis, said the organization should explain why the lawsuit cost so much, adding that financial transparency is an essential responsibility of a non-governmental organization. In addition, there were concerns that Abrams had a conflict of interest because Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, one of the lead law firm’s partners, is a close friend and chaired her 2018 gubernatorial campaign. However, Xakota Espinoza, communications director for Fair Fight Action, said that Lawrence-Hardy was hired for her expertise and not for her relationship with Abrams.
In September 2022, after a four-year legal battle, US District Court Judge Steven Jones ruled that the Georgia election law does not violate voters’ constitutional rights. In his comments, he said that while the state’s voter laws were not perfect, they did not violate the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act. He said that Fair Fight Action did not provide direct evidence of a voter who was unable to vote, experienced longer wait times, or was confused about their voter registration status. In a statement, Fair Fight Action’s executive director, Cianti Stewart-Reid, said the ruling was a significant loss for the voting rights community in Georgia and across the United States. Lawrence-Hardy said despite the loss, the lawsuit achieved some important successes and raised awareness of Georgia’s flawed voting system. The state made changes to ensure that voters were not purged from voter rolls, updated its election-worker training materials, and changed the law on absentee ballot cancellations, she said. Lawyers for Fair Fight Action also said in October 2022 that they would likely appeal the decision. Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp accused Abrams of trying to make money from the suit and cast doubt on the election process.
In 2021, Fair Fight announced the launch of its National Fellowship Program including legislators from Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee. In 2022, the program expanded to Florida, Kansas, Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, and in 2023, the program expanded again to include Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, and Ohio.
In 2024, Fair Fight announced its LFG (Volunteer) campaign to support voters and the democratic process and an artificial intelligence chatbot to supply nonpartisan election information in several languages. These efforts were an attempt to help voters better understand the election and voting process.
Bibliography
“Fair Fight Action Remains Steadfast in Protecting Freedom to Vote across Georgia and Nation, Uplifts Impact of Case Following Ruling.” Fair Fight, 2022, www.fairfight.com/the-latest-from-fair-fight/fair-fight-action-remains-steadfast-in-protecting-freedom-to-vote-across-georgia-and-nation-uplifts-impact-of-case-following-ruling. Accessed 20 Jan. 2025.
Gibson, Brittany. “Abrams’ Campaign Chair Collected Millions in Legal Fees from Voting Rights Organization.” Politico, 24 Oct. 2022, www.politico.com/news/2022/10/24/stacey-abrams-fair-fight-action-00061348. Accessed 20 Jan. 2025.
Grapevine, Rebecca. “Fair Fight Action Likely to Appeal Voting Rights Decision.” Capitol Beat, 3 Oct. 2022, capitol-beat.org/2022/10/fair-fight-action-likely-to-appeal-voting-rights-decision. Accessed 20 Jan. 2025.
Herndon, Astead W. “Stacey Abrams Will Not Run for President in 2020, Focusing Instead on Fighting Voter Suppression.” The New York Times, 13 Aug. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/us/politics/stacey-abrams-fair-fight-2020.html. Accessed 2 Jan. 2025.
King, Maya. “Federal Judge Rules against Fair Fight Action in Georgia Voting Lawsuit.” The New York Times, 30 Sept. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/us/politics/voting-lawsuit-georgia.html. Accessed 2 Jan. 2025.
Kirkland, Pamela, and Eva McKend. “Federal Judge Rules against Abrams-Founded Voting Rights Group in Georgia.” CNN, 1 Oct. 2022, www.cnn.com/2022/10/01/politics/georgia-voting-rights-ruling-abrams-kemp/index.html. Accessed 2 Jan. 2025.
"New AI Chatbot Voting Assistant Launches as Election Disinformation Increases." Fair Fight, 19 Aug. 2024, www.fairfight.com/the-latest-from-fair-fight/new-ai-chatbot-voting-assistant-launches-as-election-disinformation-increases. Accessed 2 Jan. 2025.