After bashing Democrats for the alleged practice of "ballot harvesting" to win in the 2020 election, Republicans pledged to try and beat liberals at their own game, ramping up get-out-and-vote efforts in an attempt to pad their ranks ahead of the 2024 elections.
Unfortunately for Republicans, key facets of that strategy may have already been sabotaged by its own activists, stymying any effective mass-canvassing effort before it'd even had a chance to take shape.
On June 7, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel announced a new program encouraging Republicans to vote early, building on previous calls from figures like Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and others to adopt practices Republicans had previously rejected in an effort to boost turnout.
The strategy, dubbed "Bank Your Vote" in an RNC press release promoting the measure on Wednesday, seeks to encourage Republican voters to participate through practices like in-person early voting, absentee voting, and "ballot harvesting where legal," per the press release.
"It's simple math: You want to get as many votes in before Election Day," McDaniel told reporters on a conference call promoting the effort.
It's not a new effort for Republicans; In February of this year, former president Donald Trump encouraged similar practices in his renewed push for the presidency in 2024.
But, it's a marked departure from the rhetoric both Trump and the RNC adopted in the 2020 election when the party not only derided early voting and vote by mail, but actively sought to eliminate it out of what many believed were concerns the practice would disproportionately benefit Democrats.
Democrats ultimately won in what figures show was the highest-turnout election in U.S. history, their numbers fueled by high levels of absentee and early voting among their ranks while Republicans waited until election day. And now Republicans are changing their tune.
Matching Democrats' ability to turn out the early vote, McDaniel told reporters, is "certainly is a challenge if you have people in your ecosystem saying don't vote early or don't vote by mail." Heading into 2024, McDaniel wants to make sure the GOP is all on the same page.
"Those cross messages do have an impact," she added. "I don't think you're seeing that heading into 2024. I think you're seeing all of us singing from the same song."
However, the echoes from the song Republicans were singing in 2020 appear to still be ringing in the ears of the party's voters.
In the lead-up to the 2020 elections, politicians and right-wing media influencers amplified rhetoric casting doubts over the validity and security of the mail-in and early voting system, with many stressing the system was inherently designed to benefit Democrats. Some, like Texas' recently impeached Attorney General Ken Paxton, wrote op-eds insinuating the system was overly prone to fraud, and asserted without evidence the practice would allow Democrats to exploit the votes of undocumented migrants and others ineligible to vote in the United States.
"Our democracy is threatened, this time by way of the post office," he warned in a 2020 op-ed.
By election day, survey data by the Pew Research Center and other pollsters identified a sizeable rift between Democrats and Republicans over their faith in the integrity of the absentee vote—helping fuel riots at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 attended by those who believed the election had been "stolen" from Trump.
And those numbers have only continued to persist; In the 2022 midterm elections, Gallup polling showed more Democrats (54 percent) than Republicans (32 percent) planned to vote early, bucking trends from previous elections and potentially dampening Republican chances in a year many anticipated conservatives to dominate.
Republicans know they have to change. However, in many cases, their doubts about early voting and vote-by-mail have already been codified into law.
Since the 2020 election cycle, some 19 Republican-led state legislatures have enacted legislation restricting early or mail-in voting, according to data compiled by non-partisan election bill tracker Voting Rights Lab, ranging from tighter windows to apply for mail-in ballots to strict limits on how voters can obtain ballots.
Newsweek has reached out to an RNC spokesperson via email for comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Nick Reynolds is a senior politics reporter at Newsweek. A native of Central New York, he previously worked as a ... Read more
