Republican leaders are encouraging their supporters to vote by mail in this year’s consequential presidential election, even as their party pursues lawsuits and legislation that would make it harder for those votes to count.
The Republican National Committee and the Mississippi Republican Party are suing the Magnolia State to end its practice of including absentee ballots received up to five business days after the election. In the swing state of Pennsylvania, meanwhile, the RNC and other Republican groups have challenged efforts to count absentee ballot envelopes missing a date – and have won so far. The GOP has also jumped into cases in Ohio, Georgia and Florida to defend restrictions on ballot drop boxes enacted by Republican lawmakers that are now being challenged by groups on the left. And in North Carolina, a new law, advocated by Republican lawmakers and in effect for this year’s elections, eliminates what was once a three-day grace period to accept most mail-in ballots.
But amid the legislative and legal attacks on early voting, the GOP’s leadership is nonetheless vowing a robust program to convince Republicans to turn in ballots early, either via in-person early voting or by mail, with a campaign called “Bank Your Vote.”
The dual strategy underscores the tricky balancing act for a party focused on trying to catch up the Democrats’ mail-in voting advantage and, at the same time, appease the party’s presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump, who still baselessly insists that voting by mail corrupts elections and contributed to his 2020 defeat. Just last week, at a Wisconsin rally, Trump pledged to “secure” the elections with the goal of restricting voting to a single day. And on Friday, Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson are slated to make what’s billed as a “major” announcement on election integrity at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and home….