After years of protests against the practice of collecting and delivering votes from other voters, Republicans are promising to set up their own “vote harvesting” operation before the 2024 presidential elections.
Following Democrats’ success in encouraging their supporters to use alternative voting methods in recent elections, Republicans are trying to change their attitude toward practices like mail-in voting and “ballot harvesting,” as conservatives have said. referred to ironically in the past, seeking to close the gap.
But the Republican Party’s effort comes up against a base of voters who are skeptical of the practice, as well as laws that prevent the collection of votes in key states that the party itself promoted.
In an interview with Newsmax In late April, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump said the party’s vote collection plans are “well underway.”
“The plans for this will be huge,” she said. “We’re firing on all cylinders.”
An RNC official, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said the party is focusing its efforts in the swing states of Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and North Carolina. But thanks in part to Republicans across the country who have long asserted that ballot harvesting is a vehicle for fraud, the practice of having volunteers or political operatives collect and deliver ballots to other voters is explicitly legal in just one of those states, Nevada.
Ballot harvesting by anyone other than a close relative was banned by Republican-controlled legislatures in Arizona in 2016 and Georgia in 2021.
It has been illegal for non-family members to return election ballots in North Carolina and Michigan for years. In Pennsylvania, only voters who are disabled or who cast an emergency absentee ballot can designate someone else to return their ballots.
And in Wisconsin, where Republicans have already fought to ban ballot harvesting and the use of ballot drop boxes, the law outlines voters transporting their own ballots. State Republicans say they may encourage their supporters to begin embracing ballot harvesting and the use of ballot drop boxes if the state Supreme Court, as expected, reverses its ruling that banned most of them.
“To be clear, we don’t like drop boxes,” the RNC staffer said. “We will still use drop boxes if necessary, if they are available. Same thing with harvesting: Wherever it’s a practice that Democrats are participating in, let’s participate too.”
Ballot harvesting has historically been popular in minority communities — such as Native American reservations where postal service is limited — or in states with large numbers of voters who vote by mail. But the practice has gained notoriety in recent years thanks to credible cases of voter fraud and unfounded allegations of stolen elections.
In 2018, a Republican operative on a congressional campaign in North Carolina was accused of illegally collecting ballots, prompting the state election board to order elections to be held again.
After Donald Trump refused to accept his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, he and his supporters falsely claimed that widespread vote harvesting had occurred. A since unmasked film, “2000 Mules,” claimed that Democrat-aligned “mules” were paid to collect and deliver ballots in Arizona, GeorgiaMichigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
And last year, a court ordered a rerun of the mayoral primary in Bridgeport, Connecticut, after evidence of illegal vote harvesting emerged.
In Nevada, Republican officials say they plan to go door-to-door collecting ballots, as well as spending time in areas such as retirement communities and churches to offer assistance to voters in dropping off their ballots.
“When they change the rules, you either adapt and change your strategy or you lose,” said Washoe County Republican Party Chairman Bruce Parks. “In the last electoral cycle, we did not adapt to the new rules as we should have. That will not be the case this election cycle.”
Parks said her local party began its vote collection efforts in Washoe County, which has just under half a million residents, during the presidential primary season earlier this year, making inroads into long-term care facilities and communities. of retirees that they think will be conducive environments. to collect votes in November. Once ballots are mailed, the party will encourage voters to hand-deliver them or give them to volunteers.
“If you’re not going to adapt, you’re going to die. We have to adapt. Is it unpleasant? Do we consider this cheating? Absolutely,” Parks said. “But if you don’t do that and you’re sure the opposition is heavily involved in this, then you’re setting yourself up for failure.”
‘Mindset change’
It’s exactly these concerns described by Parks that could make it difficult for Republicans to collect votes this cycle.
“It’s definitely a mindset shift,” said a county party chairman, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “There will be a significant number of people – Republicans – who would not trust anyone with their vote no matter what. … That’s a hurdle you have to overcome.”
Leo Blundo, chairman of the Nye County Republican Party in Nevada, said his local party has been working to step up its grassroots efforts and using RNC messaging to “place your vote.” He said he has more than a hundred volunteers ready to vote in the county of just over 51,000 residents.
“At a local level, it’s about promoting people’s credibility and trust,” Blundo said. “We are reshaping and rebuilding the local Republican Party for the last cycle.”
He said voting by mail is simpler than taking voters to the polls.
“It’s very easy – I can just give it my vote and be done with it,” he said.
In urging voters to vote by mail, Blundo said he tells voters about a race for county commissioner that was won by one vote.
“I know the lady who was supposed to vote, but she said, yes, so I got in a car accident,” he said. “This is really unfortunate, but every vote counts.”
In Esmeralda County, which has just 729 people, Republican Party Chairwoman Theresa Moller said she plans to have at least a half-dozen people collect votes at churches and go door to door. While in the past she has helped people turn in their ballots when asked, she said this year’s effort will be more robust.
“Hey, if they’re going to election harvest, we’re going to election harvest,” she said in a phone interview.
Moller expressed doubts about the integrity of the state’s elections and vote collection, but said he would send people who were well-known in their community and who voters trusted.
Several Nevada county party chairmen said they would encourage ballot harvesting and discourage voters from using the mail service, which they feared was unreliable — especially after the United States Postal Service announced it would move its distribution center in Reno to California. (The change will not take effect until the 2024 elections, the Reno Gazette Journal reported.)
Democrats, for their part, have long enjoyed success in voting by mail, fueled in part by ballot harvesting where it is legal. The Democratic National Committee said it plans to spend “tens of millions of dollars” supporting voting programs like mail and early voting.
In a statement, he criticized the RNC’s broader handling of mail-in voting.
“Donald Trump and his MAGA minions continue to attack mail-in voting while the RNC is actively deploying an army of lawyers to make it harder for Americans to count their votes,” Alex Floyd, the DNC’s director of rapid response, said in a statement. .
The RNC has filed a series of election lawsuits this year, including one in Nevada to block the state from counting ballots received within four days of the election as long as they were postmarked before polls closed.
“Let’s be clear about what this is: the RNC and Trump’s newly installed team of radical election deniers like [RNC Chair] Michael Whatley and Lara Trump are not just trying to make it harder to vote – they are trying to undermine this entire election, just like they did in 2020,” Floyd said.
And while a robust ballot collection effort is new for Nevada Republicans, California Republicans have used the practice for years.
Two weeks before the 2022 election, California Republicans identified 18,000 people with Republican voting histories who had not yet voted. They began repeatedly contacting these voters and collecting mail-in ballots in hopes of electing Republican John Duarte of Modesto in an open and competitive race for Congress.
The state Republican Party’s ground game paid off: They saw a 34 percent increase in votes cast before Election Day that year. Duarte won his district — which the Associated Press reported had a 14-point Democratic registration advantage — by just 564 votes.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
