Lara Trump: Preventing Cheating In November Is Top RNC Priority
RNC co-chair Lara Trump says that "protecting the vote" in the upcoming November election is the most critical task for the committee.
"We have three pillars that we need to focus on at the RNC to ensure victory on November 5, turn out the vote, protect the vote, and raise money," she told Fox news' "Sunday Morning Futures" on March 10.
"But I would argue that maybe the most important of those three is protecting the vote, election integrity," she added.
Lara Trump says the RNC will devote ‘massive resources’ to election integrity before soliciting the audience for volunteer lawyers pic.twitter.com/CE0b9GRs6n
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 13, 2024
Trump was asked by host Maria Bartiromo about her opinion of Attorney General Merrick Garland's speech earlier this month in which he suggested that it's racist not to allow the least secure methods of casting a vote in America.
On March 3, Mr. Garland said the U.S. Department of Justice was “fighting back” against “efforts by states and jurisdictions to implement discriminatory, burdensome, and unnecessary restrictions on access to the ballot, including those related to mail-in voting, the use of drop boxes, and voter ID requirements.” -Epoch Times
"We have to ensure that, when people go vote, they feel like their vote counts, that they are inspired to go vote. We can never allow what happened in 2020 and the questions surrounding that election to ever happen again," said Trump.
Lara, the daughter-in-law of former President Donald Trump, suggested that Democrats are against voter ID because they seek to expand their voter base with illegal immigrants.
"Democrats are bleeding and hemorrhaging voters. They understand that they cannot fool people in this country any longer so they have to import people," she said. "The only reason you wouldn’t want voter ID is if you want people who cannot vote to vote in these elections. It is insane."
Roughly 81% of Americans support voter ID, according to a February poll by Pew Research. Along party lines, however, 95% favor the concept, while 69% of Democrats - still a majority, support it.
According to Lara Trump, the RNC has established an "election integrity division" and devoted "vast resources dedicated solely to this cause," which include a "nationwide network of volunteers," such as poll workers and poll watchers.
To those who might cheat in the upcoming election, "We will go after you [and] you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," Trump said.
Legal Ballot Harvesting
As the Epoch Times notes further, Trump also told Ms. Bartiromo that the RNC would use legal ballot harvesting in this election cycle. “It is already underway, and we will expand it again,” she said.
Last week, Ms. Trump and Michael Whatley, chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, were elected to lead the RNC to replace Ronna McDaniel. Both were endorsed by President Trump last month.
The leadership overhaul comes just days after President Trump dominated the Republican presidential primaries on Super Tuesday on March 5, solidifying his hold on the Republican nomination and the party itself.
“We need to have the biggest legal ballot harvesting operation this country has ever seen,” Ms. Trump said. “It feels, for a long time, like the Democrats have been playing chess, and we’ve been playing checkers,” she said. Her goal is for the Republican Party “to be the opposite, to be steps ahead of them, and on our toes, and ahead of the game, and facing forward the whole time.”
Ballot harvesting, legal in some states, allows people to deliver absentee or mail-in ballots to drop-off points on behalf of other voters. Republicans have been skeptical of the procedure, fearing it would lead to election fraud. Democrats have been much more willing to use the strategy.
“Whether or not [Democrats] do it legally, that’s up for discussion,” Ms. Trump said, adding that it’s time for Republicans to start “attacking the game differently.”
She also suggested that the RNC embrace early voting for the upcoming election. “The truth is, if we want to compete with the Democrats, we cannot wait until election day,” she said. “If we want to compete, we must embrace early voting.