Former President Donald Trump announced he’s launching a move to increase and encourage Republican early voting as well as the use of mail-in and absentee ballots in the upcoming November presidential election, reversing course on previous comments he’s made about the practice.
Calling the campaign “Swamp the Vote,” the former president said that “Republicans must win, and we will use every appropriate tool to beat the Democrats because they are destroying our country,” according to a news release issued on Tuesday.
“Whether you vote absentee, by mail, early in-person, or on election day, we are going to protect the vote. We make sure your ballot is secure and your voice is heard. We must swamp the radical Democrats with massive turnout,“ he said in the release. ”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.”
The program appears to be the successor to the Republican National Committee’s “Bank Your Vote” plan that was started under former Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who departed the RNC earlier this year.
The former president has long been critical of mail-in ballots and absentee voting, notably during the 2020 presidential election cycle. He has said that the practice leads to an increase in fraudulent votes being cast and wants to have it ended.
“We have to get rid of mail-in ballots because once you have mail-in ballots, you have crooked elections,” President Trump said in his victory speech following the Iowa caucuses in January.
However, President Trump has also recently suggested that Republicans need to embrace early voting and so-called “ballot harvesting” in states that allow it.
Other Republicans say they’re not going to risk leaving ballots behind. The co-chair of the Republican National Committee, Lara Trump, has vowed to embrace all sorts of legal election methods to boost turnout, including ballot harvesting, or when people turn in mail ballots on behalf of other voters during a campaign event last month.
“Any way you can vote and as early as you can vote, get your vote banked,” Lara Trump said during a GOP event in North Carolina, according to The Associated Press.
During a Newsmax interview in April, she said the party’s ballot plans are “well underway,” adding that “the plans for that are going to be huge.” She did not elaborate.
Meanwhile, the former president’s announcement on Tuesday comes as his campaign and the RNC announced that they hauled in $141 million in fundraising last month. The Trump campaign also announced they raised tens of millions of dollars in the aftermath of the former president’s conviction for falsifying business records in Manhattan.
“We are moved by the outpouring of support for President Donald J. Trump,“ Trump campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita said in a statement. The campaign ”raised $141 million in small donations alone this month because Americans ... want us to return to prosperity and success when he is re-elected in November,” it added.
A spokesperson for the Biden campaign, Ammar Moussa, was skeptical of the figures and wants to “see how the numbers actually shake out” when they are reported.
“One thing’s for certain: Trump’s billionaire friends are propping up the campaign of a white collar crook because they know the deal—they cut him checks and he cuts their taxes while working people and the middle class pay the tab,” he said in a statement. The Epoch Times has contacted the Biden campaign for comment.
