The Republican Party announced it would mobilize more than 100,000 people in battleground states to ensure “transparency and fairness” in the 2024 election, an announcement criticized by some as threatening to intimidate voters. .
The Republican National Committee announced Friday in conjunction with former President Donald Trump’s campaign that “every time a vote is cast or counted, Republican pollsters will monitor the process and report any irregularities.” . “When fraud or issues arise, RNC attorneys and the volunteer attorneys they work with provide rapid response services to resolve issues using sophisticated and tested behavioral protocols.”
The announcement accused Democrats of using a “trick” in 2020, but did not say what that trick was. Although there is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, Trump and many of his Republican allies have falsely claimed that his loss was the result of illegal manipulation.
Recruiting poll watchers is ‘really difficult’
One Democratic Party expert was skeptical that Republicans would be able to gather so many volunteer poll watchers.
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Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said it would be impossible to find 100,000 volunteers and that it might be better to say 10 million. “It’s tough,” he said of his efforts to mobilize tens of thousands of volunteers for President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. “It’s really hard.”
President Trump has previously called for volunteers to monitor the election. His 2016 campaign website asked for volunteers: “Help us stop Crooked Hillary from rigging this election!”
Levitt said polling place volunteers have mundane tasks, such as helping people register to vote and receive ballots in the languages they speak, but that’s not what the RNC is promoting. said.
“If your job is to stand there and make sure fraud doesn’t happen, it’s really hard to hire people for that job because your job is to stand there for 15 hours,” Levitt said. Told.
Obama famously recruited and mobilized millions of volunteers during his 2008 campaign. Adab Noti, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center, called it “a different kind of volunteering” that involves phone banking and door-knocking.
“Most pollsters work at the local level,” Noti said. “It doesn’t work to recruit poll watchers to go to precincts halfway across the country and sit there for 12 hours and watch people vote while nothing happens.”
RNC says there are five parts to the plan
According to the RNC announcement, volunteers will monitor five key areas: “machine testing for logic and accuracy,” early voting, Election Day voting, mail-in ballot processing, and post-election activities such as canvassing, audits, and recounts. Then he said. The party also said it would set up “election integrity hotlines” in each battleground. The party did not provide specific states or hotline numbers.
There is no evidence that voting machines tampered with the 2020 election, but Fox News faces a defamation lawsuit for falsely announcing that Dominion Voting Systems’ voting machines were rigged to tamper with the 2020 election. The company ended up paying $787 million in settlement. Absentee ballots have also been targeted by those questioning the inaccuracy of the 2020 election results, but there is no evidence that fraudulently submitted or erroneous absentee ballots have flipped elections.
“Every vote. Every precinct. Every processing center. Every county. Every battleground state. We’ll be there,” said RNC co-chair Lara, who is married to Donald Trump’s son Eric. Trump said in the announcement. “The RNC employs hundreds of election integrity staffers across the country, more than ever before, as our party plans to hire thousands more observers to protect the vote in 2024. That’s why each state’s campaign officials are tasked with recruiting, training and, where possible, poll workers and poll workers on the move every day. ”
Levitt said the biggest risk to the RNC’s program announcement is that some voters may hear about the possibility of a large presence of Republican pollsters and fear a confrontation with anyone who challenges their eligibility. , he said, deciding that it would be too much trouble to vote. But he said the party could hit them again because people who rarely vote are increasingly voting Republican.
Polls in February and March showed that the more elections you’ve voted in since 2018, the more likely you are to support President Joe Biden, and the fewer elections you’ve voted in, the more likely you are to support Trump. found.
“I don’t think the RNC understands that these are their own voters right now,” Levitt said.
