RNC recruits poll workers in Michigan as part of vote monitoring efforts

Tedesco participated in the training and said his big takeaway was that the job of election monitors was to “be the eyes and ears.” He summarized what authorities told attendees as: “Stay within the law” and “don’t be idiots,” but that “if you spot something that appears to be out of line, say something.”

Other attendees shared that they were concerned about specific issues related to voting — and were pleased that the national and state parties had chosen Midwestern Michigan’s battleground as the location to begin their public efforts, even though the training didn’t take place. delve into detailed information.

“There are a lot of mail-in ballots in Michigan,” said Teresa Snider, a 60-year-old mortgage collector in Oakland County. “If you want to vote, you should be there and do it,” she said, adding that mail-in ballots were acceptable for people with disabilities and the elderly, but that, “in general, they create a lot of problems.”

The Michigan event was billed as a formal kickoff to the party’s more specific plans to recruit volunteers and even train them in election monitoring practices. The RNC has scheduled similar events in Pennsylvania and North Carolina next week, and in Georgia the week after that. Officials said planning was underway to hold more in other swing states, including Wisconsin, in the coming weeks.

Biden won Michigan in 2020 by 2.8 percentage points, while Trump won in 2016 by just 0.2 percentage points — fewer than 11,000 votes. The race is expected to be close again this year.

In recent months, the RNC has stepped up a broader focus on election integrity. After Trump won the Republican presidential nomination in March, the party launched a series of lawsuits arguing that voter rolls in certain swing states were bloated. The RNC also brought together election lawyers before announcing in April its intention to deploy an army of supporters on Election Day to “protect the vote and ensure a big victory” in November.

However, Democrats with experience working closely with voter protection efforts argued that the RNC is overstating its work and said they were skeptical that Republicans could recruit so many people to monitor the polls for fraud.