Trump-Biden Debates set

[GMDino]

(05-19-2024, 12:52 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Are not! The R's are not ballot harvesting this time... 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/republicans-vow-robust-ballot-harvesting-120000827.html

Quote:Republicans vow a robust 'ballot harvesting' operation after years of protest and fraud claims

Jane C. Timm
Updated Fri, May 17, 2024 at 9:10 AM EDT·7 min read
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After years of railing against the practice of collecting and delivering other voters’ ballots, Republicans are vowing to mount their own “ballot harvesting” operation ahead of the 2024 presidential election.


Following Democrats’ success encouraging their supporters to use alternative voting methods in recent elections, Republicans are seeking to change their tune on practices like mail-in voting and “ballot harvesting,” as conservatives have derisively referred to it in the past, seeking to close the gap.


But the GOP’s effort is running up against base voters who are skeptical of the practice, as well as laws to prevent ballot collection in key states that the party itself pushed.

In a Newsmax interview in late April, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump said the party’s ballot collection plans are “well underway.”


“The plans for that are going to 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 on the battleground states of 
Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and North Carolina. But thanks in part to Republicans around the country who have long claimed that ballot collection is a vehicle for fraud, the practice of having political volunteers or operatives collect and deliver ballots for other voters is explicitly legal in just one of those states, Nevada.


Ballot collection by anyone other than a close relative was banned by Republican-controlled legislatures in Arizona in 2016 and Georgia in 2021.


It’s been illegal for nonfamily members to return voters’ ballots in North Carolina and Michigan for years. In Pennsylvania, only voters who are disabled or casting an emergency absentee ballot can designate someone else to return their ballots.


And in Wisconsin, where Republicans have previously fought to ban ballot harvesting and the use of drop boxes, the law describes voters transporting their own ballots. State Republicans say they may encourage their supporters to start embracing ballot harvesting and the use of absentee ballot drop boxes if the state Supreme Court, as expected, reverses its ruling that banned most of them.


“We don’t like drop boxes, to be clear,” the RNC official said. “We’re still going to use drop boxes if we have to, if they’re available. Same thing with harvesting: Where it’s a practice that Democrats are partaking in, we’re going to partake in it, too.”


Ballot collection was historically popular in minority communities — like Native American reservations where postal service is limited — or states with a high number of voters who cast ballots by mail. But the practice has gained notoriety in recent years thanks to both credible instances of voter fraud and baseless allegations of stolen elections.


In 2018, a Republican operative on a North Carolina congressional campaign was accused of illegally collecting voters’ ballots, resulting in the state’s election board ordering the election 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 ballot collection had occurred. A since-debunked film, “2000 Mules,” claimed that Democratic-aligned “mules” were paid to collect and drop off ballots in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.


And last year, a court ordered a do-over of a mayoral primary in Bridgeport, Connecticut, after evidence of illegal ballot collection emerged.


In Nevada, Republican officials say they are planning to go door to door collecting ballots, as well as spending time in areas like retirement communities and churches to offer voters assistance in delivering their ballots.


“When they changed the rules, you either adapt and change your strategy, or you lose,” said Washoe County GOP Chair Bruce Parks. 
“Last election cycle, we didn’t adapt to the new rules like we should have. That will not be the case this election cycle.”


Parks said his local party started its ballot harvesting efforts in Washoe County, which has just under half a million residents, during the presidential primary season earlier this year, making inroads at long-term care facilities and retirement communities that they think will be ripe environments for ballot collection in November. Once mail ballots have been dispatched, the party will encourage voters to hand-deliver their ballots or give them to volunteers.


“If you’re not going to adapt, you’re going to die. We have to adapt. Is it distasteful? Do we consider it cheating? Absolutely,” Parks said. “But if you don’t do it, and you know for sure that the opposition is heavily involved in doing it, then you’re setting yourself up for failure.”


‘Change of mindset’
It’s those very concerns that Parks described that may make ballot collection difficult work for Republicans this cycle.


“It’s definitely a change of mindset,” said one county party chair, who was granted anonymity speak candidly. “There’s going to be a significant number of people — Republicans — who would not trust their ballot to anybody, no matter what. … That’s an obstacle you have to overcome.”


Leo Blundo, chair of the Nye County Republican Party in Nevada, said his local party has been working to ramp up its grassroots efforts and using RNC messaging to “bank your vote.” He said he has more than a hundred volunteers prepared to turn out voters in the county of just over 51,000 residents.


“At the local level, it’s about fostering that credibility and trust with people,” Blundo said. “We’ve been rebranding and rebuilding the local Republican Party now for the last cycle.”


He said mail voting is simpler than driving voters to the polls.


“It’s just easy — I can just give you my ballot and be done with it,” he said.
When urging voters to vote by mail, Blundo said he tells voters about a county commissioner race that was won by one vote.


“I know the lady who was supposed to go vote but she was like, yeah, then I got in a car wreck,” he said. “That’s really unfortunate, but every vote counts.”


In Esmeralda County, which has just 729 people, county GOP Chairwoman Theresa Moller said she plans to have at least a half dozen people collect ballots at churches and go door to door. While in the past she’s helped people deliver their ballots when asked, she said this year’s effort will be more robust.


“Hey, if they’re going to ballot harvest, we’re going to ballot harvest,” she said in a phone interview.


Moller expressed doubts about the integrity of state elections and ballot collection, but said she’d send out people who are well-known in their community and will be trusted by voters.


Several Nevada county party chairs said they would encourage ballot collection and discourage voters from using the mail service, which they worried is unreliable — particularly after the United States Postal Service announced it would move its Reno distribution center to California. (The change won’t take effect until after the 2024 election, the Reno Gazette Journal reported.)
Democrats, for their part, have long enjoyed successes in mail voting, fueled in part by ballot collection where it is legal. The 
Democratic National Committee said it plans to spend “tens of millions of dollars” in support of voting programs like mail and early voting.


In a statement, it criticized the RNC’s handling of mail voting more broadly.


“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’ ballots to be counted,” Alex Floyd, the DNC’s rapid response director, said in a statement.


The RNC has filed a number of election lawsuits this year, including one in Nevada to block the state from counting mail ballots received up to four days after the election as long as they have a postmark before the close of polls.


“Let’s be clear about what this is: the RNC and Trump’s newly installed team of hard-core election deniers like [RNC Chair] Michael Whatley and Lara Trump aren’t just trying to make it harder to vote — they’re trying to undermine this entire election just like they did in 2020,” Floyd said.


And while a robust ballot collection effort is new to Nevada Republicans, California Republicans have been utilizing the practice for years.

Two weeks before the 2022 election, California Republicans identified 18,000 people with GOP voting records who hadn’t yet cast a ballot. They started repeatedly contacting those voters and collecting mail ballots in hopes of electing Modesto Republican John Duarte in an open and competitive congressional race.


The state GOP’s ground game paid off: They saw a 34% uptick in votes cast before Election Day that year. Duarte won his district — which The Associated Press reported has a 14-point Democratic registration advantage — by just 564 votes.

I have no doubt they'll find a way to do it illegally/wrong though.  It's the Trump way.