In an Election Day tweet, the Republican National Lawyers Association labeled the Brennan Center — a non-partisan public policy institute that advocates for voters and studies other justice issues — an “anti-democracy hate” group.
The Twitter account of the GOP lawyers linked to a right-wing blog’s post on the Brennan Center being the recipient of contributions from George Soros, while decrying Brennan as “vote fraud deniers.” A few hours later, Republican National Lawyers Association walked back the “hate groups” comment on Twitter.
Sad that NY Times quotes verbatim vote fraud deniers and anti-democracy hate groups like the Brennan Center. https://t.co/O3y0aiHOJE
— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) November 8, 2016
While we are troubled by Brennan Centers attacks on election officials, anti-Democracy efforts, we shouldn’t have called them a hate group.
— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) November 8, 2016
The Brennan Center is associated with the New York University Law School, and does research on voting laws across the country. Its attorneys have been involved in some of the lawsuits challenging voter ID laws, and other voting restrictions. Critics have said that these restrictions are veiled attempts to make it harder for minorities and lower income people — who are more likely have issues obtaining the required IDs — to vote, pointing to how rare in-person voter fraud is.
The RNLA, meanwhile, is a major proponent of voter restrictions and is known to sound the alarms over alleged voter fraud. While other Republican figures distanced themselves from Donald Trump’s “rigged election” claims, the RNLA was among the voices cheering him on.
