Marta Moehring voted in Nebraska’s Republican primary on Tuesday. She chose to go to her West Omaha polling place in person. This is what Moehring, who is 62 years old, chooses because he doesn’t trust the state’s no-excuse mail-in ballot process. She said, “I don’t trust it in general.” “I don’t think they’re counted correctly.” She agrees with many Trump fans that she thinks fake mail-in ballots cost Trump a second term in 2020.
But Republicans, including Trump, are now telling people like Moehring to think again about voting by mail. The GOP has started to “correct the narrative” and encourage their base to vote by mail. This is a big change for a party that used to be against mail ballots. This change in strategy is seen as necessary for the upcoming elections, which are expected to come down to very close races in swing states.
At a conservative event in Pennsylvania, Rep. Scott Perry, a strong supporter of Trump, said, “We have to get right on using these mail-in ballots for the people who can’t get there on Election Day.” Republicans used to be just as likely as Democrats to vote by mail, but Trump’s early opposition to the method in 2020 changed how people voted.
At first, GOP planners thought that mail-in ballots would be helpful because they would let campaigns get votes early and reduce uncertainty on Election Day. Trump’s 2020 campaign tried to get people to vote by mail, but most of his supporters stuck to what he said. As a result, Democrats strongly supported mail-in votes during the pandemic.
The trend kept going into 2022, and Arizona was a great example of it. Three of the top Republican candidates there told their fans to vote in person on Election Day, saying the same thing Trump did: they didn’t trust mail-in ballots. After an election machine broke down in Maricopa County, this caused long lines and anger. All three candidates lost by a small margin, with the governor’s race losing by 17,000 votes.
To make sure they don’t lose again, Republicans are now supporting all legal ways to vote, even mail-in ballots. Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law and chair of the Republican National Committee, has promised to use all legal means possible to get more people to vote. She said, “In this election cycle, Republicans will beat Democrats at their own game.”
The well-known pro-Trump group Turning Point Action is starting a $100 million effort to get people who don’t usually vote to do so in Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin. They are promoting mail-in voting as one of several easy ways to do so. Andrew Kolvet, a spokesman for the party, stressed following the rules by saying, “We can spend our time complaining about it or we can get in gear and play by the rules that Democrats used.”
Trump often says bad things about mail-in voting, but he has started to support it as a good choice. The RNC is still suing to stop different mail-in vote methods, but they also want people to use them. In a new video, Trump tells his supporters, “Election Day voting, early voting, and voting by mail are all good options.”
Recently, the Republican State Legislative group, a Senate candidate’s group, and the state GOP all worked together to push mail-in voting in Pennsylvania. Because of their work, a lot more GOP mail-in vote applications were received than Democratic ones. But Republicans’ mail-in votes still make up a small portion of all ballots—about a quarter of all ballots.
As head of the Westmoreland County Republican Party, Bill Bretz saw that people in his conservative area were becoming more open to voting by mail. “People are aware of what this election means,” he said. It’s becoming less scary to vote by mail, and a lot of people want to vote in any way possible.
As the 2024 election draws near, the GOP’s move to support mail-in ballots is a practical move to make sure that every vote counts in close races.
