A federal judge agreed last week that three civic organizations presented a “very weak” voter intimidation case to her last year, but it was not so baseless as to award the defendants attorney fees after they prevailed at trial.

Last July, U.S. District Court Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney concluded the organizers of an “election integrity” effort had not violated the Voting Rights Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act with their door-to-door canvassing effort in the wake of the 2020 election. In her ruling at the time, Sweeney noted the plaintiffs’ key witness, a Grand Junction woman who received a visit from canvassers, could not even identify which organization sent the volunteers to her home.

Subsequently, the defendants collectively asked for more than $1 million in costs and attorney fees after they prevailed. They argued defendants in civil rights cases are entitled to such awards if a plaintiff’s claims are “frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless.”

Sweeney, an appointee of Joe Biden, was not willing to go that far, even as she criticized the plaintiffs’ attorneys.

“There is no question that Plaintiffs’ case-in-chief was very weak, and the Court strongly urges Plaintiffs and their counsel to reassess future cases, particularly those with tenuous claims that barely withstand scrutiny,” she wrote in a Feb. 28 order. Yet, it was not “one of those rare cases that justify an award of attorney fees to prevailing defendants, especially where there is no conclusive evidence that Plaintiffs or their counsel showed serious disregard for the orderly process of justice.”

The plaintiff groups — the Colorado Montana Wyoming State Area Conference of the NAACP, the League of Women Voters of Colorado, and Mi Familia Vota — sued the founders of U.S. Election Integrity Plan (USEIP), which was an organized effort following the 2020 election to visit voters at more than 9,400 homes to inquire about their registrations and past voting behavior.

The defendants characterized the canvassing effort as “the equivalent to a high school civics project,” but the plaintiffs maintained the purpose was not benign. They pointed to USEIP’s “playbook,” published in August 2021 at the tail end of the door-knocking project, which claimed “they stole our election” and warned about “the destruction of the greatest nation in the history of earth.”

During the three-day trial in front of Sweeney, however, the case quickly unraveled. Both sides attempted to litigate matters unrelated to USEIP’s activities, and the plaintiffs for the first time raised the theory that employees of the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office might have been victims of voter intimidation, as well.

The case faltered further following the testimony of Yvette Roberts, who the plaintiffs chose to testify about her alleged intimidation by USEIP canvassers. In her telling, a man and woman approached her house in June 2021 to say they were “part of an investigation looking into the Colorado 2020 election” and wearing semi-professional-looking badges.

Sweeney had previously allowed the case to proceed to trial based on Roberts’ pretrial statements about the experience. However, on the witness stand, it became apparent that Roberts did not experience any intimidating behavior nor could she be sure the canvassers were even affiliated with USEIP.

“There was no evidence of voter intimidation, but simply a risk of voter intimidation. This court will not act on risk that was proven unfounded,” Sweeney said in her ruling.

The defendants — Shawn Smith, Ashley Epp and Holly Kasun — then moved for Sweeney to award them more than $1 million in attorney fees and costs.

“Plaintiffs brought this case premised on hearsay media reports, which could not be substantiated through discovery, and continued to litigate this frivolous, unreasonable, and foundationless case through trial,” wrote Smith’s attorneys. At some point, plaintiffs must have realized “no witness would be able to testify that they were intimidated by Defendants. Nevertheless, Plaintiffs continued to litigate this matter for more than a year.”

The plaintiffs’ attorneys countered it would be unwise to award attorney fees to defendants who prevail in voting rights cases, as it would serve as a deterrent to bringing lawsuits in the first place. Further, they argued Epp, as a self-represented defendant, had no entitlement to attorney fees. Finally, they noted Sweeney’s ruling for the defendants did not necessarily mean the case was frivolous.

Sweeney agreed that she could not look at the case in hindsight and deem it meritless because the plaintiffs lost.

“Although the Court found at trial that many of the factual allegations Plaintiffs point to were either inadmissible, unpersuasive, or irrelevant,” she wrote, “such findings do not necessarily mean that Plaintiffs’ entire case was frivolous or clearly baseless.”

An appeal of Sweeney’s trial ruling is currently pending at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.

The case is Colorado Montana Wyoming State Area Conference of the NAACP et al. v. Smith et al.