June 14, 2024, 9:44 pm EDT
By Adam Edelman
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. – National Republicans kicked off their in-person recruiting efforts Friday in the crucial battleground state of Michigan as part of their broader effort to build an Election Day army of 100,000 election workers and supervisors. aimed at combating the rare problem of electoral fraud.
National Republican Party officials, including Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley and Co-Chairwoman Lara Trump, as well as state and local party officials, generated enthusiasm for the party’s aspirational “Protect the Vote” program in the small Oakland County Republican Party office, about 30 miles. northwest of downtown Detroit.
The event was the first of several organized by the RNC to begin more publicly deploying its recruiting efforts to bolster the massive election integrity effort it announced in April that seeks to deploy 100,000 volunteers and attorneys, predominantly in seven swing states, to monitor the process. vote.
Volunteers at an RNC election training event in Michigan on Friday. Nick Hagen for KeynoteUSA
In front of a crowd of about 100 people, Whatley and Trump redoubled their focus on the exceptionally rare problem of voter fraud and pressed attendees to consider volunteering for the effort in Michigan.
“If we have a free, fair and transparent election, there is no doubt that when the votes are counted, we will go to bed early on November 5. Let’s get this over with so everyone can sleep well at night. and I will go to bed knowing that Donald Trump is our next president,” Trump said.
She added that she and Whatley “have two jobs in the RNC: get out the vote and protect the ballot.”
“And that’s where you come in,” Trump said to applause.
Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee and Turning Point Action, speaks with volunteers at an RNC election training event in Michigan on Friday. Nick Hagen for KeynoteUSA
Whatley said the stepped-up public recruiting effort revolved around two concepts: observation and publicity.
“You have to be in the room when people vote” and “you have to be in the room when the votes are counted,” he said.
“It’s not an election-denying conspiracy theory to say that you should be in the room and make sure these things are done fairly,” Whatley said.
He added that it was equally important that “we need to make sure that we are talking” frequently about the broader issue of election integrity.
Amid years of false accusations about the 2020 election by former President Donald Trump, the RNC announced plans in April to assemble a 100,000-person force to fight the widespread voter fraud they insist is occurring. (There is no evidence that widespread voter fraud occurred during the 2020 race, and election officials have repeatedly said votes were safe in the race.)
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley speaks with volunteers at a Republican National Committee election training event in Michigan on Friday. Nick Hagen for KeynoteUSA
But GOP officials had largely provided few details about the plans, while critics have said the projected size and scope of the effort is too much. aspirational. And as of Friday, recruiting efforts had been directed almost entirely through the RNC-run website Protectthevote.com.
Event organizers from the national and Michigan Republican Party continued to provide scant details about their recruiting success and did not allow the media to observe Friday’s training session. Attendees at the session described it as light on detail and not much different from previous guidance that local party officials have provided on how to best perform the duties of an election observer or monitor.
Still, attendees also expressed ardent enthusiasm for the GOP’s attention to the issue of election integrity, with many listing it as one of the three issues that matter most to them heading into the election.
“Election integrity is crucial,” said Chris Meister, a 67-year-old retiree.
Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee and Turning Point Action, poses with volunteers at an RNC election training event in Michigan on Friday. Nick Hagen for KeynoteUSA
“We should all be concerned that every vote is counted accurately,” he said, adding that, “frankly, the system in Michigan completely lacks any kind of checks and balances to ensure integrity.”
He attended the training at Friday’s event and said it focused primarily on how to best “raise and report” issues with election officials on the ground at the polls on Election Day.
Other attendees repeated certain stories and theories popular among 2020 election skeptics about vote counting processes in Michigan four years ago.
Bill Tedesco, an 81-year-old substitute high school teacher, said he remained “extremely” concerned about voter fraud and said Trump “was fooled” in 2020 and was the real victor in Michigan. He also discussed his views on what happened at the TCF Center in Detroit, a vote-counting site on election night in 2020 that descended into chaos after tensions erupted between vote tabulators and Republican election observers. It emerged as the center of some lawsuits seeking to overturn the results in Michigan.
“In Detroit, at one point, they kicked out poll watchers and put pizza boxes in the windows. Don’t do that if you want to be honest. There has to be a different way to monitor these elections,” he stated.
Volunteers Bill Tedesco, 81, of Warren and Teresa Snider, 60, of White Lake. Nick Hagen for KeynoteUSA
Tedesco attended the training and said his main takeaway was that the job of election supervisors was “to be the eyes and ears.” He summarized what officials told attendees as: “Stay within the law” and “don’t be idiots,” but that “if you spot something that seems out of place, say something.”
Other attendees shared that they were concerned about specific issues related to voting and were pleased that the national and state parties had chosen the Midwestern battleground of Michigan as the place to begin their public efforts, even if the training did not delve into detailed information. .
Recommended
“There are too many mail-in ballots in Michigan,” said Teresa Snider, a 60-year-old mortgage collector from Oakland County. “If you want to vote, you should be there and do it,” she said, adding that mail-in voting was acceptable for disabled people and older people, but “in general, they create too many problems.”
The Michigan event was touted as the formal start of the party’s more targeted plans to recruit volunteers and even train them in election monitoring practices. The Republican National Committee has scheduled similar events in Pennsylvania and North Carolina next week, and in Georgia the week after that. Officials said more were being planned in other battleground states, including Wisconsin, in the coming weeks.
Biden won Michigan in 2020 by 2.8 percentage points, while Trump won it in 2016 by just 0.2 percentage points — fewer than 11,000 votes. The race is expected to be close again this year.
In recent months, the Republican National Committee has intensified its attention to election integrity. After Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination in March, the party filed a series of lawsuits arguing that voter rolls in certain swing states were inflated. The Republican National Committee also hired election lawyers before announcing in April its intention to deploy an army of supporters on Election Day to “protect the vote and ensure a big victory” in November.
However, Democrats with experience working closely with voter protection efforts have argued that the RNC is overstating its work and said they were skeptical that Republicans could recruit so many people to monitor polls for fraud.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley and Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee and Turning Point Action, hold a news conference outside a Republican National Committee election training event in Michigan on Friday. Nick Hagen for KeynoteUSA
Meanwhile, election officials, including in Michigan, said they understood the value of election observers, monitors and challengers, but stressed the importance of them receiving proper training and expressed concern about RNC training sessions.
“They play a critical role in ensuring accountability in Election Day operations. They play an important role as a check and balance,” said Lisa Posthumus Lyons, who as clerk of Kent County in western Michigan is the county’s top elections official.
“The key,” said Posthumus Lyons, a Republican, “is to make sure that they are adequately trained and prepared, that they clearly know their role and their responsibilities, that they know the election laws and how they are administered.”
Jillian Frankel and Jane C. Timm contributed.
Keynote USA
For the Latest Local News, Follow Keynote USA Local on Twitter.