Former President Donald Trump is urging supporters to take advantage of early voting, mail-in voting, and ballot collecting, embracing the activities he claimed were abused by Democrats in the 2020 election.
In an email Wednesday, the Trump campaign shared a link to an article on Breitbart that quoted the former president telling his GOP backers to do what he said Democrats have used to their advantage. Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination next year, endorsed the Bank Your Vote initiative, announced by the Republican National Committee in June.
“While Republicans have worked to share our beautiful values with voters, Democrats and dangerous groups funded by the far left have simply focused on collecting ballots,” Trump said. “That’s all they wanted to do—collecting ballots. But you know what? It turned out to be not such a bad idea. This must change for us to win in 2024.”
Trump repeated his unsubstantiated claims that mail-in voting fraud helped Democrats rig the 2020 election that he lost to Joe Biden.
“We may not like the current system, but we need to master the rules and beat the Democrats at their own game, and then we can make our own rules,” Trump said. “Republicans must get tougher and fight harder to cast our votes and get our ballots turned in earlier so Democrats can’t rig the polls against us on election day.”
On a video on the Bank Your Vote website, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel tells Republicans that early voting is a key factor in winning next year.
“To win close elections, we need to close the gap on pre-election day voting,” McDaniel said.
She said Republicans made strides in promoting early voting in 2022 but that more need to request mail-in ballots or vote early in person next year.
“If we don’t vote early, we’re giving the Democrats a head start. But when Republicans vote early, we win. And in 2024 we are going to hold the House, win the Senate, and take back the White House.”
Alabama does not have early in-person voting at polling places but does have absentee voting by mail.
The Republican majority in the Legislature has opposed Democratic-backed bills to allow early in-person voting or to expand absentee voting by removing the requirement that voters sign a sworn statement giving a specific reason, such as being out of town on election day or being sick or incapacitated.
Earlier this year, Republican lawmakers sponsored a bill to make it a felony to help another person obtain an absentee ballot application, with exceptions for helping a family member or a disabled person. The bill, which drew strong opposition from Democrats and organizations that provide voter assistance, passed the House but died in the Senate.
