Swordsmyth
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Six months before a presidential election in which turnout could matter more than persuasion, the Republican Party, the Trump campaign and conservative activists are mounting an aggressive national effort to shape who gets to vote in November — and whose ballots are counted.
The Republican program, which has gained steam in recent weeks, envisions recruiting up to 50,000 volunteers in 15 key states to monitor polling places and challenge ballots and voters deemed suspicious. That is part of a $20 million plan that also allots millions to challenge lawsuits by Democrats and voting-rights advocates seeking to loosen state restrictions on balloting. The party and its allies also intend to use advertising, the internet and Trump’s command of the airwaves to cast Democrats as agents of election theft.
The efforts are bolstered by a 2018 federal court ruling that for the first time in nearly four decades allows the national Republican Party to mount campaigns against purported voter fraud without court approval.
The 2018 ruling merely “allows the RNC to play by the same rules as Democrats,” a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, Mandi Merritt, said in a statement.
“Now the RNC can work more closely with state parties and campaigns to do what we do best — ensure that more people vote through our unmatched field program,” the statement said.
Besides the national party and Trump’s campaign strategists, conservative advocacy groups are joining lawsuits, recruiting poll monitors and mounting media campaigns of their own. Leading them is a new and well-funded organization, the Honest Elections Project, formed by Leonard Leo, a prolific fundraiser, advocate of a conservative judiciary and confidant of Trump.
Republicans will have an Election Day operations program “that probably no other presidential campaign has had before,” Josh Helton, a Republican consultant, said at a meeting of the Conservative Political Action Committee in March. “It’s going to be all hands on deck.”
In battleground states, that extends even to comparatively quiet places like Fond du Lac County, an eastern Wisconsin outpost of about 100,000 people and 1,200 farms midway between Green Bay and Milwaukee.
“I think the big push is going to be for poll observers” in November’s general election, the Republican Party county chairman, Rohn Bishop, said this month. “No harm in making sure.” Indeed, he said that training sessions for election monitors were already in the works.
Fair Fight claims that the groups’ combined spending on lawsuits, election monitoring and spreading allegations of cheating will far exceed the $20 million announced to date.
At the Conservative Political Action Committee conference, Justin Clark, a Trump campaign senior adviser overseeing Election Day operations, argued that the court order had handed a decadeslong edge to Democrats.
“We were really operating with one hand behind our back,” he said.
Speaking to Wisconsin Republicans in November, Clark said the party’s expanded poll-monitoring plans were accelerated by defeats last November in governor’s races in Kentucky and Louisiana.
The party has named three regional directors of Election Day operations, is hiring directors in 15 key states and will beef up the paid staffs that recruit and work with volunteers. Wisconsin, for example, is to receive 100 operatives, compared to 62 in 2016.
One aim, he said, is to expand poll monitoring beyond the usual big-city Democratic strongholds. Clark, in remarks which were posted online by the Democratic opposition group American Bridge, cited a county where he said Trump won by 14,000 votes in 2016. “But maybe he should have won by 17,000,” he said. “Their cheating doesn’t just happen when you lose a county.”
In addition to the $20 million raised by the party for legal battles over election rules, conservative advocacy groups have joined the legal war, filing lawsuits and briefs in states such as New Mexico, Minnesota and Nevada. The Honest Elections Project, which surfaced only this spring, already has joined legal battles over voting in six states and has spent $250,000 on advertising opposing voting by mail.
Honest Elections officials did not respond to a request for an interview. But an account in the online publication Axios in January detailed plans by Leo, its creator, “to funnel tens of millions of dollars into conservative fights” nationwide.
Republicans said the goal of their litigation effort was “to ensure the integrity of the 2020 election” and rebuff Democratic attempts “to sue their way to victory in 2020.” But Mark Elias, a Washington lawyer who represents Democrats in many of the suits that Republicans are contesting, said every Republican court filing has sought to add or keep limits on voting rather than remove them.
More at: https://news.yahoo.com/freed-court-ruling-republicans-step-122713344.html
The Republican program, which has gained steam in recent weeks, envisions recruiting up to 50,000 volunteers in 15 key states to monitor polling places and challenge ballots and voters deemed suspicious. That is part of a $20 million plan that also allots millions to challenge lawsuits by Democrats and voting-rights advocates seeking to loosen state restrictions on balloting. The party and its allies also intend to use advertising, the internet and Trump’s command of the airwaves to cast Democrats as agents of election theft.
The efforts are bolstered by a 2018 federal court ruling that for the first time in nearly four decades allows the national Republican Party to mount campaigns against purported voter fraud without court approval.
The 2018 ruling merely “allows the RNC to play by the same rules as Democrats,” a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, Mandi Merritt, said in a statement.
“Now the RNC can work more closely with state parties and campaigns to do what we do best — ensure that more people vote through our unmatched field program,” the statement said.
Besides the national party and Trump’s campaign strategists, conservative advocacy groups are joining lawsuits, recruiting poll monitors and mounting media campaigns of their own. Leading them is a new and well-funded organization, the Honest Elections Project, formed by Leonard Leo, a prolific fundraiser, advocate of a conservative judiciary and confidant of Trump.
Republicans will have an Election Day operations program “that probably no other presidential campaign has had before,” Josh Helton, a Republican consultant, said at a meeting of the Conservative Political Action Committee in March. “It’s going to be all hands on deck.”
In battleground states, that extends even to comparatively quiet places like Fond du Lac County, an eastern Wisconsin outpost of about 100,000 people and 1,200 farms midway between Green Bay and Milwaukee.
“I think the big push is going to be for poll observers” in November’s general election, the Republican Party county chairman, Rohn Bishop, said this month. “No harm in making sure.” Indeed, he said that training sessions for election monitors were already in the works.
Fair Fight claims that the groups’ combined spending on lawsuits, election monitoring and spreading allegations of cheating will far exceed the $20 million announced to date.
At the Conservative Political Action Committee conference, Justin Clark, a Trump campaign senior adviser overseeing Election Day operations, argued that the court order had handed a decadeslong edge to Democrats.
“We were really operating with one hand behind our back,” he said.
Speaking to Wisconsin Republicans in November, Clark said the party’s expanded poll-monitoring plans were accelerated by defeats last November in governor’s races in Kentucky and Louisiana.
The party has named three regional directors of Election Day operations, is hiring directors in 15 key states and will beef up the paid staffs that recruit and work with volunteers. Wisconsin, for example, is to receive 100 operatives, compared to 62 in 2016.
One aim, he said, is to expand poll monitoring beyond the usual big-city Democratic strongholds. Clark, in remarks which were posted online by the Democratic opposition group American Bridge, cited a county where he said Trump won by 14,000 votes in 2016. “But maybe he should have won by 17,000,” he said. “Their cheating doesn’t just happen when you lose a county.”
In addition to the $20 million raised by the party for legal battles over election rules, conservative advocacy groups have joined the legal war, filing lawsuits and briefs in states such as New Mexico, Minnesota and Nevada. The Honest Elections Project, which surfaced only this spring, already has joined legal battles over voting in six states and has spent $250,000 on advertising opposing voting by mail.
Honest Elections officials did not respond to a request for an interview. But an account in the online publication Axios in January detailed plans by Leo, its creator, “to funnel tens of millions of dollars into conservative fights” nationwide.
Republicans said the goal of their litigation effort was “to ensure the integrity of the 2020 election” and rebuff Democratic attempts “to sue their way to victory in 2020.” But Mark Elias, a Washington lawyer who represents Democrats in many of the suits that Republicans are contesting, said every Republican court filing has sought to add or keep limits on voting rather than remove them.
More at: https://news.yahoo.com/freed-court-ruling-republicans-step-122713344.html
