
In order to tackle the rare issue of voter fraud, National Republicans launched their in-person recruiting operations on Friday in Michigan, a key battleground state. This was part of a larger attempt to assemble an army of 100,000 poll workers and monitors on Election Day.
At the modest Oakland County GOP office, about 30 miles northwest of downtown Detroit, national GOP officials, including Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley and co-chair Lara Trump, as well as state and local party officials, stoked excitement for the party’s ambitious “Protect the Vote” program.
The RNC held the first of several events in which it will more openly launch its recruitment efforts to staff the massive election integrity project that it announced in April. The project aims to deploy 100,000 volunteers and attorneys to monitor the vote, primarily in seven swing states.
Whatley and Trump emphasized the extremely unusual issue of voter fraud to an audience of roughly 100 people, and they encouraged those there to think about working for the Michigan effort.
“There is no doubt that we will retire to bed early on November 5th once the ballots are counted if we have a free, fair, and transparent election. We’re going to finish this up so that everyone goes to bed knowing that Donald Trump will be the next president, Trump stated.
Whatley and she “have two responsibilities at the RNC: distributing ballots and safeguarding them,” she continued.
Trump replied, “And that’s where you guys come in,” to cheers.
Whatley noted that publicity and observation were the two main focuses of the increased public recruitment campaign.
“It is imperative that you be present in the room during voting and during the vote-counting process,” he declared.
Whatley asserted, “Saying that you should be in the room and that these things are being done fairly is not an election-denier conspiracy theory.”
Furthermore, he stated that it was crucial that “We must ensure that we are discussing” the more general subject of election integrity on a regular basis.
In April, the Republican National Committee (RNC) declared its intention to raise a force of 100,000 people to combat the rampant voting fraud that it claims is taking place, amidst a years-long barrage of false allegations concerning the 2020 election made by former president Donald Trump. (Electoral officials have stated repeatedly that votes were secure in the fight; there is no proof of significant voter fraud during the 2020 race.)
However, Republican Party officials had mainly withheld information about the intentions, and critics claimed that the effort’s projected breadth and size was unduly ambitious. Additionally, up until Friday, virtually all recruiting attempts were made via the ProtecttheVote.com website, which is controlled by the RNC.
The national and Michigan Republican Parties’ event planners refused to let the media witness the training session on Friday and continued to offer little details on their recruiting achievements. Participants saw the workshop as lacking in specifics and akin to earlier directives from local political party officials regarding the optimal execution of poll watcher/monitor responsibilities.
However, guests were also quite enthusiastic about the GOP’s focus on election integrity, with many putting it as one of their top three concerns before the election.
According to 67-year-old retiree Chris Meister, “Election integrity is crucial.”
He stated, “To be honest, there are no checks or balances of any kind in the Michigan system to guarantee integrity.” “Every vote should be accurately counted,” he continued.
He reported that the training on Friday was mostly centered on how to effectively “raise and report” concerns to the election officials stationed at the polls on election day.
Certain narratives and theories regarding the Michigan vote-counting procedures from four years ago that were widely circulated among 2020 election doubters were reiterated by other attendees.
The 81-year-old Bill Tedesco, a substitute high school teacher, claimed that he was still “extremely” concerned about voter fraud and asserted that Trump had been “cheated” in 2020 and that he had won Michigan. He also talked about what he thought happened at the TCF Center in Detroit, which was the scene of a chaotic vote-counting incident on Election Night in 2020 after a fight broke out between Republican poll observers and vote tabulators. It became the focus of several lawsuits in Michigan that attempted to overturn the outcomes.
“In Detroit, pizza boxes were placed on the windows, and vote observers were expelled at one point. If you’re being sincere, you wouldn’t do that. “An alternative approach to overseeing these elections is imperative,” he uttered.
Attending the training, Tedesco stated that the most important lesson he learned was that a poll monitor’s role was “to be the eyes and the ears.” He summed up the instructions given by the officials to the participants as follows: “Don’t be a jerk. Stay within the law.” However, “Speak up if you notice something that seems inappropriate.”
Even though the training didn’t go into great length, several attendees expressed that they were worried about certain concerns surrounding the vote and were happy that the national and state parties had selected Michigan, a battleground state in the Midwest, as the location for their first public efforts.
“Much too many mail-in ballots are cast in Michigan,” stated Oakland County resident Teresa Snider, a 60-year-old mortgage collector. “It is your right to vote, so go out and cast your ballot,” she stated, noting that while mail-in votes were allowed for elderly and disabled voters, “in general, they create too many problems.”
The party had planned to recruit volunteers and even educate them in poll monitoring techniques; the Michigan event was billed as an official kick-off to these more focused initiatives. Similar gatherings have been arranged by the RNC for next week in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, and for the following week in Georgia. Additional ones would be held in Wisconsin and other battleground states in the upcoming weeks, according to officials.
In comparison, Trump won Michigan in 2016 by a mere 0.2 percentage point, or less than 11,000 votes, while Biden won the state in 2020 by 2.8 percentage points. This year’s race is anticipated to be close as well.
The RNC has increased its emphasis on election integrity in recent months. Following Trump’s victory in March for the Republican presidential nomination, the party filed a number of challenges, claiming that the voter rolls in some battleground states were disproportionately large. Prior to declaring in April that it intended to send out an army of supporters on Election Day in order to “protect the vote and ensure a big win” in November, the RNC had hired up election lawyers.
Democrats who have worked closely on voter security initiatives in the past, however, have claimed that the RNC is overstating their work and expressed skepticism about Republicans’ ability to assemble such a large number of observers to keep an eye out for poll fraud.
Election officials, notably those in Michigan, acknowledged the relevance of poll watchers, monitors, and challengers, but also stressed the need for them to obtain the necessary training and voiced concerns about the RNC’s training sessions.
“They are essential in ensuring that Election Day procedures are accountable. As the top elections official in Kent County, western Michigan, Lisa Posthumus Lyons stated, “They are crucial in acting as a check and balance.”
Republican Posthumus Lyons stated, “The important thing is to make sure they are properly trained and prepared, that they understand their role and responsibilities, and that they are aware of the election laws and how they are administered.”