A federal judge on Thursday concluded three civic organizations failed to provide evidence that the leaders of an “election integrity” effort illegally intimidated Colorado voters through a door-to-door canvassing project to search for election fraud in the wake of the 2020 presidential race.

After three days of testimony, U.S. District Court Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney granted the motion to end the case after noting both sides seemingly wanted to litigate matters beyond the narrow question she had to decide.

“It is not about the Jan. 6 insurrection or the history of voter intimidation in this country. It is not about the defendants’ collective belief about election fraud. It’s not about the security or lack of security of elections in Colorado,” said Sweeney, an appointee of President Joe Biden. “It is certainly not about who is paying for this litigation for any party. Those are sideshows and I was trying to reel those sideshows in.”

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.”

Sweeney found nothing intimidating about the documents USEIP produced.

“Does the manual provide hyperbole or false information? Maybe. But that is not the question before this court,” she said.

Testimony established the three defendants — Shawn Smith, Ashley Epp and Holly Kasun — were “core members” of USEIP. Smith said publicly that those who are adjudicated of election fraud “deserve to hang” and Epp testified that “the enemy is those involved in election fraud.” There has been no documented existence of widespread election fraud following the 2020 election.

Media reports about USEIP’s 2021 canvassing effort depicted volunteers as planning to take pictures of voters’ homes and in some cases carrying weapons. Beth Hendrix, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Colorado, testified her organization was prompted to file suit largely due to those reports.

However, Sweeney explained in her ruling how the plaintiffs’ case fell apart due to insufficient evidence. She could not find the defendants liable for voter intimidation based on media articles, she noted, and the trial featured the absence of any voter claiming USEIP’s canvassers threatened them.

The plaintiffs’ key witness, Grand Junction resident Yvette Roberts, spoke about two canvassers with homemade badges coming to her home in June 2021 to ask how many people lived in her house and how she cast her ballot. She said she felt intimidated and asked the canvassers to leave, which they did.

Sweeney said she originally green-lit the matter for trial in 2023 because she relied on Roberts’ written declaration that USEIP was responsible for sending the canvassers. But on cross-examination, Roberts admitted she did not know whether the canvassers were affiliated with USEIP.

Sweeney also called out the plaintiffs for attempting on the second day of trial to reframe the narrative to allege elections workers were actually the intimidated parties.

“Plaintiffs attempted to broaden the theory of the case midstream. I did not allow that,” she said.

Sweeney noted that other cases involving voter intimidation contained circumstances unlike the USEIP initiative — following people into polling places or surveilling drop boxes, for example, which did result in judicial intervention.

“The court has no doubt that voter intimidation efforts … occurred in this country and continue to occur in this country. But the court cannot conclude defendants were part of that effort without sufficient evidence,” she said. “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.”

“We are disappointed in this ruling and are exploring all appeal options,” said attorney Courtney Hostetler of Free Speech For People, an out-of-state advocacy group that helped bring the lawsuit.

Kasun called the ruling a “COMPLETE and TOTAL VINDICATION” on her X account.

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