GOP Launches Early Voting Campaign
After years of claiming early and absentee voting leads to fraud, Republicans change course.
A sign at an early voting location at Midtown Shopping Center in Milwaukee, pictured Oct. 28, 2018. Some of the voters came right after their Sunday church services as a part of Souls to the Polls, a get out the vote effort where congregations urge their members to vote. Emily Hamer/Wisconsin Watch
After years of saying mail-in voting and ballot harvesting leads to fraud, Republicans have changed course.
The GOP has launched a get-out-the-vote campaign for the 2024 election that uses those strategies, hoping to match the excitement of early voting Democrats have harnessed to lock in their supporters.
Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel announced, “Bank Your Vote” — a nationwide campaign that builds on absentee voting, early in-person voting and ballot harvesting — on a call with Wisconsin media on Monday.
“To beat Joe Biden and the Democrats in 2024, we must ensure that Republicans bank as many pre-Election Day votes as possible,” McDaniel said. “The RNC is proud to build on our historic efforts from last cycle and work with the entire Republican ecosystem to reach every state. Banking votes early needs to be the focus of every single Republican campaign in the country, and the Republican National Committee will lead the charge.”
This marks a notable shift from the party’s former rhetoric, when party leaders were encouraging voters to in-person vote on Election Day.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled last year that drop boxes were illegal beginning in the April 2022 election.
The GOP’s BankYourVote.com will encourage voters to pledge to “Bank” their vote, which will activate digital reminders from the RNC on all applicable pre-Election Day voting options.
Moving toward the 2024 election, the RNC will partner with state parties and campaigns to create pages outlining pre-Election Day voting processes for the 56 states and territories with links to state government sites where voters can request their ballot directly.
The Wisconsin GOP chair Brian Schimming praised the move on social media.
“Wisconsin had 11 races in the last 23 years decided by 30,000 votes or less,” Schimming said on Twitter. “It’s why I’m helping lead the Wisconsin GOP ‘Bank Your Vote’ campaign with Sen. Ron Johnson and all GOP members of the delegation. Vote early + expand base = Win Wisconsin.”
Two key races recently lost by Republicans had wider margins.
Gov. Tony Evers won reelection by about 91,000 votes against Republican challenger Tim Michels. In April, liberal Supreme Court candidate Janet Protasiewicz defeated former Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly by about 10 points.
Democratic Party of Wisconsin Communications Director Joe Oslund issued a statement saying Wisconsin Republicans “spent years and millions of taxpayer dollars casting doubt on the 2020 election and undermining safe and accessible forms of early voting only now to reverse course” after multiple statewide defeats.
“The GOP eagerly backed litigation that made it nearly impossible for disabled Wisconsinites to cast ballots, waged war on secure ballot drop boxes that benefited voters in communities across the state, and stymied safe early voting efforts in the face of a global pandemic,” Oslund stated. “This about-face to now embrace early voting is a hypocritical and deeply cynical ploy that is doomed to fail thanks to the years Republican politicians like Donald Trump, Robin Vos, and Brian Schimming have spent lying to their own voters about the 2020 election.”
Wisconsin is a battleground state in the 2024 election. Milwaukee will host the first GOP presidential debate in Milwaukee on Aug. 23 and the Republican National Convention in July 2024.
GOP changes course, launching early voting campaign was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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