OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former President Donald Trump is widening his push for supporters to vote early and use a mail-in ballot option if they want as part of an effort to ensure he gets as many votes as possible heading into the 2024 election.
Trump was previously opposed to anything but same-day voting and is still quick to claim that Democrat-imposed mail-in and early voting options implemented during the 2020 cycle during the COVID-19 pandemic were unfair and rife with fraud. But he has since changed his mind at the urging of his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee, and others who say the GOP has to adjust to the new balloting landscape so they can win elections and potentially change laws and rules to better protect elections in the future.
The Trump campaign and Republican National Committee announced the launch of the “Swamp the Vote” program on Tuesday. The program aims to mobilize swing-state voters and promote the use of mail-in, absentee, and early voting, Just the News reported.
“Republicans must win and we will use every appropriate tool to beat the Democrats because they are destroying our country. Whether you vote absentee, by mail, early in-person or on election day, we are going to protect the vote,” Trump said in a statement. “We make sure your ballot is secure and your voice is heard. We must swamp the radical Democrats with massive turnout. The way to win is to swamp them, if we swamp them with votes they can’t cheat. You need to make a plan, register, and vote any way possible. We have got to get your vote.”
Trump spoke on Thursday at a “Chase the Vote” town hall in Maricopa County, Arizona, a location prominently featured in Trump’s claims of election fraud and former Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s own election challenges.
During the event hosted by Turning Point Action, Trump specifically focused on evangelical and gun-owning voters. He argued that neither of these traditionally Republican-leaning voter blocs voted in sufficient numbers.
“Gun owners, for whatever reason, don’t vote,” he went on, as reported by the outlet. “We have to get the Evangelicals, we have to get the gun owners. We have to get these people to vote.”
“We need a victory that’s too big to rig. You know what that means. We need everybody to get out and vote,” he insisted while promoting the Swamp the Vote program and telling supporters about the webpage for the initiative.
“I call them the fake vote store. That’s the mail-in ballots. We shouldn’t have mail-in ballots unless somebody’s very, very sick or it’s military far away,” Trump told the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show in October of 2022.
“We should go to paper ballots, like they did in France. Thirty-six million people (voted) and they had no disputes. Everyone had paper ballots, and it was one-day voting. They didn’t store them over there in the corner, and you see the boxes moving all over the place,” he noted at the time.
However, by March 2023, following a lackluster midterm election cycle for the GOP, the former president grudgingly admitted that Republicans have “no choice” but to accept and utilize early voting, vote by mail, and ballot harvesting—all of which are heavily utilized by Democrat voters and operatives.
“In the states where ballot harvesting is still legal, we have no choice but to beat the Democrats at their own game,” Trump said at the time. “Either we start ballot harvesting or you can just wave goodbye to our country… We have to get smart.”
“I have to commend the RNC and Lara Trump for really stepping up and acknowledging that this needs to be a top priority,” American First Works Executive Director Ashley Hayek told the outlet.
