As the 2024 election cycle draws near, it appears that Republicans are recognizing ballot harvesting as an integral part of any successful election strategy.
However, opinions on the decision to give in and use ballot harvesting are mixed.
While campaigns are already well underway, the much anticipated 2024 presidential election cycle won’t officially begin until the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 22, 2024. But while Super Tuesday is only tentatively scheduled to take place on March 5 of next year, debates on the pros and cons of ballot harvesting and mail-in ballots have already begun.
Republicans have spent years decrying the practice of mail-in ballots and ballot harvesting, but they are now realizing that, in order to win, they have to play.
Ballot harvesting is a process by which third-parties can collect completed mail-in ballots from voters and deliver them in bulk to a drop box or local elections office.
Although every state allows absentee voting, the rules and guidelines vary greatly between states.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 31 states allow voters to authorize someone else to return their ballot on their behalf. Of those, nine limit the number of ballots an authorized person can return, and four limit the amount of time those ballots can remain in the authorized person’s custody before being returned.
Data compiled by USA Facts in 2021 show that three states—Florida, Georgia, and Iowa—decreased the number of ballot drop boxes allowed per county and established regulations requiring drop boxes to be constantly monitored by county election officials. Conversely, Illinois, Kentucky, and Virginia passed laws that increased the number of drop box locations.
Twelve states limit the number of ballots a third party may return on behalf of other voters.
By the Numbers
To understand the power of ballot harvesting and mail-in ballots in an election, one must look at the numbers.A November 2020 study released by Pew Research showed that 54 percent of voters cast their ballots in person during the November 2020 presidential election, compared with 46 percent who voted by mail-in or absentee ballot. Only 27 percent said they voted in person on Election Day, and an equal amount said they voted by way of in-person early voting.
While 37 percent of former President Donald Trump’s voters cast their ballots in person on Election Day, only 17 percent of Biden voters did the same.
Where 30 percent of Trump supporters voted early, only 24 percent of Biden’s voters cast ballots in person before Election Day.
Most noteworthy, while 32 percent of Trump supporters voted by way of mail-in or absentee ballot, more than half of Biden’s voters, 58 percent, cast their ballots through the mail-in method.
Polling data released by the U.S. Census Bureau in April 2021 showed that 69 percent of voters in the 2020 presidential election voted by mail or early voting, making it the “highest rate of nontraditional voting for a presidential election” recorded.
‘A Huge Mistake’
After years of criticizing ballot harvesting and a push toward mail-in ballots, some Republicans are beginning to reconsider their party’s unbending resistance to both practices.On Nov. 29, 2022, on Truth Social, Trump wrote in all capital letters, “You can never have fair & free elections with mail-in ballots—never, never, never. Won’t and can’t happen!!!”
Three months later, in a February fundraising email, Trump asked supporters to chip in for his “ballot harvesting fund,” writing, “Either we ballot harvest where we can, or you can say goodbye to America!”
However, as a contender for the Republican nomination for the 2024 election cycle, DeSantis assured a voter at a campaign stop in Iowa on June 1, “We’re going to do ballot harvesting.”
“I’m doing it. Yes,” he said. “I’m not going to fight with one hand tied behind my back.”
She said Trump was right in saying “Democrats have inserted havoc and chaos” into the election cycle.
In a Fox News interview two years later, McDaniel said Republican voters need to start voting early.
“I have said this over and over again,“ she said. ”There were many in 2020 saying, ‘Don’t vote by mail, don’t vote early.’ And we have to stop that.”
Her response, he said, was that the RNC has to “do everything we can to win.”
Lindell told The Epoch Times that he didn’t want to argue with McDaniel, but he said the RNC has made a huge mistake.
“How do you just change your tune and hope states will go for it and make ballot harvesting legal?” Lindell said. “This is not the right approach. It’s a desperation move.”
Lindell also noted how Democrats put several voting practices into play illegally in multiple states during the COVID-19 pandemic through secretaries of state and governors, which he believes gave Democrats an illegal advantage.
‘It’s a Bad Idea’
Michael Thompson, chairman of the Lee County Republican Executive Committee and Election Integrity Committee member of the Republican Party of Florida, said that the words “ballot harvesting” “strike fear into many Republicans.”
“They should just stay in their lane,” Thompson told The Epoch Times. “The one thing Republicans never seem to learn is that Democrats are constantly doing things to set them up.”
Thompson said he believes Republicans are embracing ballot harvesting and mail-in ballots only “because Democrats have been so successful at it.”
“But my concern is that Democrats are going to be in there monitoring Republicans to make sure they’re doing it right and if they aren’t doing it right they’re going to accuse Republicans of trying to rig the elections,” he said. “No matter what you think of Democrats, they’ve always out-maneuvered Republicans.
‘We Have to Compete’
Corey Gibson said he’s excited by the idea of leveling the ballot harvest playing field. In his position as national executive director of development for Rethink! GOP, he will be playing an integral role in creating what he said will be a winning strategy.“Ballot harvesting is something that Democrats have been doing forever and the Republicans simply haven’t been competing with them,” Gibson told The Epoch Times, explaining that the project began when “some Gen Z folks got together” and began discussing how exhausting it was watching the GOP continue to lose the ballot harvest game.
“We’re the first national ballot harvesting project,” Gibson said.
“We’ve been able to unite Gen Z leadership with ‘established,’ rather than ‘establishment,’ leaders and champions for voter integrity. Now, like with everything else in life, it’s a matter of fundraising.”
While some are concerned about the optics of Republicans’ embracing a practice they were condemning not long ago, Gibson said he has come in contact with many who are relieved that the party is finally competing with Democrats in this way.
‘Vote Trafficking’
In an October 2019 study for The Heritage Foundation (pdf), Hans von Spakovsky described ballot harvesting as “a dangerous and foolish public policy that threatens the integrity of elections,” insisting “it should not be implemented by state legislatures—and should be prohibited in the states that currently allow it.”
As manager of the organization’s Election Law Reform Initiative, von Spakovsky is an authority on voter fraud and the enforcement of federal voting rights laws.
“I actually call it ‘vote trafficking,’ because that’s what it is,” von Spakovsky told The Epoch Times.
Still, he doesn’t “see any conflict” between prior and current GOP sentiments on the topic.
“In states where it’s legal you need to comply and play by the rules,” von Spakovsky explained. “But you don’t want to be at a political disadvantage because the other party is heavily recruiting people to go out and collect ballots and you don’t do the same thing. You have to meet their efforts.”
For those who express concern about Republicans’ decision to embrace ballot harvesting and the prospect that the GOP won’t be able to compete with Democrats on this contentious yet necessary front, von Spakovsky said: “That’s no reason not to take legal advantage of the rules that govern an election process.
Time to Go Back
Dennis Prager, a nationally syndicated talk show host, author, and founder of PragerU, issued a statement to The Epoch Times about the issue.“Democrats have pushed through election rule changes that transformed Election Day into Election Month, pushed through rule changes that, in some states, made ballot harvesting—a practice that had been illegal precisely because it so opens the door to fraud—legal, and then added a further rule change requiring mail-in ballots be sent to every registered voter,” he said.
Prager also suggested that Democrats didn’t change the rules out of concern for voters who might not have time to go to their polling location to cast their vote.
“They did these things because they knew if elections became a game of gathering ballots rather than winning votes, Democrats, through their activists operating primarily in Democrat-leaning precincts, would have a massive advantage,” Prager said.
“Anyone can collect and turn in the ballots of others with no verified chain of custody or proof that the voter, not an activist, filled out the ballot.”
For now, Prager conceded that “Republicans will have to play this game by the new rules and also organize and ‘harvest’ ballots.”
Prager suggested that if the GOP truly wants to restore election integrity, Republican state legislators will have to propose and pass laws that bring elections back to the days of paper ballots and hand-counts at the precinct level—on Election Day.
“The only exceptions should be made for people who are bedridden or out of town when the election takes place,” Prager said. “Anything short of that means the United States no longer has elections we can have faith in.”
