BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. (AP) — The Republican National Committee launched an initiative Friday in swing states to mobilize thousands of polling place supervisors, poll workers and lawyers to serve as poll watchers. of “election integrity” in November, a move that immediately raised concerns that it could lead to harassment of poll workers and undermine confidence in the US elections.
The RNC says its plan will help voters have faith in the electoral process and ensure that their votes matter. However, as former President Donald Trump and his allies continue to spread false claims that the 2020 election was marred by widespread fraud, the initiative also lays the groundwork for a repeat of Trump’s attempt to undermine the results, a tactic that ended up leading to the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol.
Trump’s allies have already signaled that they might not accept the results if he loses to President Joe Biden.
The RNC has said its new initiative will focus on stopping “Democratic attempts to circumvent the rules.” The party will deploy monitors to monitor every step of the electoral process, create hotlines for poll watchers to report perceived problems, and take legal action to have such problems addressed.
The national Republican Party says it hopes to recruit 100,000 volunteers, a figure some election experts say will be difficult to reach even in a high-profile presidential election year.
RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said Friday that the committee will place election integrity directors in 15 states, including the most contested ones, and will work with state parties to establish similar programs in the remaining states.
“What we have to ensure is integrity in our electoral process,” said RNC co-chair Lara Trump—daughter-in-law of the former president—during the inaugural event in Bloomfield Hills, in a suburban county crucial to winning Michigan. “We can never go back and repeat 2020, but we can learn the lessons of 2020.”
He said most of the RNC is currently focused on the committee’s election integrity program, which he called “one of its kind.”
Both parties have a long history of organizing their supporters to be election observers, and the Democratic National Committee said it is planning its own volunteer recruitment initiative. Several election officials in politically swing states in presidential elections said this type of transparency and participation is one of the best ways to help skeptics trust the numerous security measures introduced in the electoral process.
However, the discourse around the RNC initiative and the way it is being implemented could raise broader concerns if it evolved beyond the normal organization of political parties, said David Becker, a former Justice Department lawyer. of the United States and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonprofit organization focused on building confidence in elections.
“Doing it in a way that encourages your voters in the idea that the election is going to be stolen, that prepares them to be angry if their candidate loses; “That can be very dangerous,” Becker explained.
Trump spread false claims of voter fraud in 2016 and 2020 and has continued to predict a rigged election if he loses this year. “The only way they can beat us is by cheating,” he said of Democrats during a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday.
“Don’t let them cheat,” he said. “Don’t let them do anything.”
The RNC leadership – which Trump hand-picked in a sweeping committee shakeup this year – has followed suit in predicting the possibility of foul play in this year’s elections. Lara Trump qualified her response to CNN this month when she was asked if she would accept the results.
“I can tell you that yes, we will accept the results of these elections if we consider them to be free, fair and transparent,” he said. “And we are working overtime to ensure that happens.”
Asked Friday if the committee plans to challenge the election certification process in any politically swing states where Trump could narrowly lose, Whatley responded: “We’re not concerned about that eventuality at the moment.”
For decades, the RNC was limited in its ability to coordinate poll monitoring and other election integrity activities due to a consent decree issued by a federal court, which was established to stop Republican-backed voter intimidation attempts. The decree was revoked in 2018.
The RNC initiative comes at a time when the Republican Party faces a significant disadvantage compared to Democrats with respect to the presence of traditional political infrastructure on the ground in key states, such as campaign offices, community centers and election representatives. Biden’s campaign team and its allies at the Democratic National Committee have opened hundreds of campaign offices across the country, while Republican officials in many cases are still waiting for Trump’s campaign team and the RNC to spring into action. in that sense.
Alex Floyd, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said the DNC, “along with our partners at the state and local level, will not allow MAGA Republicans (an acronym for the “Make America Great Again” slogan promoted by Donald Trump) to get away with these baseless attacks on our democracy, and we will continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that all Americans can make their voices heard at the ballot box.”
The RNC’s inaugural event took place at the headquarters of the Oakland County Republican Party, one of the most influential local parties in Michigan. Oakland County is a prosperous suburb of Detroit that for decades was one of Michigan’s leading bellwether counties.
Although the county has the largest number of Republican voters in the state, it has become increasingly Democratic in recent years, and Donald Trump has lost it in both of his previous campaigns.
The RNC has focused its attention on Michigan for many of its election challenges, a state that Trump narrowly won in 2016 but lost to Biden in 2020. A review by Republican lawmakers concluded there was no fraud widespread in that year’s election and that Biden legitimately won the state. That coincides with the inspections, recounts and audits carried out in the other battleground states in which Trump challenged his defeat, and which confirmed Biden’s victory.
Despite these facts, conspiracy theories about voting and electoral fraud emerged in Detroit when election observers and their protesters had friction at the city’s convention center—the most populated in the state—where ballots were taken and counted.
On Friday, Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey said that behavior four years ago was unacceptable and said it won’t happen again this year.
“You weren’t successful when we weren’t expecting you in 2020. Now that we are expecting you, well, I’m not worried at all,” he told the AP on Friday. “Those from Detroit don’t play games. “We are tired of them messing with us.”
He said the new state law allowing one poll watcher for every eight poll workers will be enforced by federal agents and state and local law enforcement.
After kicking off Friday in Michigan, the RNC’s “Protect Your Vote” tour will hold events in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia, followed by other visits to battleground states.
Democrats and their allies in those states questioned Republicans’ intentions, saying their repeated lies about the election have contributed to undermining public trust.
Allison Dahle, a North Carolina state representative and the ranking Democrat on the House Elections Legislation Committee, said Republicans in her state should have focused on providing more resources to the State Election Board, including hiring, if they were so concerned about discouraging fraud.
“Voters would have more confidence in elections if Republicans would stop lying about them,” observed Adam Bonin, a Philadelphia-based attorney who has represented the Democratic Party and its candidates in high-profile election cases.
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Associated Press writers Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta, Corey Williams in Detroit, Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina; Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; and Steve Peoples in Detroit contributed to this report. Swenson reported from New York.
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