Lara TrumpThe co-chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) and daughter-in-law of former President Trump on Friday vowed to prosecute anyone who committed election fraud.
“This is the year we do it,” Lara Trump said at the Turning Point USA conference in Detroit, Michigan. “We are sending a loud and clear message to anyone who thinks the election was fraudulent, we will find you, we will track you down and we will punish you to the fullest extent of the law.”
The RNC on Friday launched a swing state initiative to mobilize thousands of people. polling place monitorIn November, the Elections Commission appointed election workers and lawyers to act as “election integrity” monitors.
Lara Trump said her goal is to recruit more than 100,000 poll observers and 500 attorneys to deploy to election sites across the country.
Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump speaks onstage during “Turning Point’s The People’s Convention” at Huntington Place on June 14, 2024 in Detroit, Michigan. (Jeff Kowalski/AFP via Getty Images)
For decades, the RNC’s ability to coordinate poll monitoring and other election integrity activities was limited by a federal court consent decree established to prevent Republican-backed voter intimidation efforts. The decree was lifted in 2018.
“We have a unique opportunity right now that we haven’t had in 40 years as a party. For 40 years, the RNC was held by a consent decree that wouldn’t allow us to train people to serve as poll workers,” Lara Trump said at a Turning Point USA event. “Who was training all the people for the last 40 years? Not the RNC. Think about how many people the DNC got to train.”
“We have this wonderful opportunity now so we can train you to work in the vote center. We can train you to work in the tabulation center when the mail-in ballots come in. We also want to have advocates working in every major vote center so we’re not reactive, we’re proactive,” he said.
The RNC has said its new effort will focus on stopping “Democrat efforts to circumvent the rules.” The party will deploy monitors to watch every step of the election process, create a hotline for election observers so they can report alleged problems, and pursue those issues with legal action.
The RNC’s kick-off event took place at the headquarters of the Oakland County GOP, one of Michigan’s most influential local parties. Oakland County is an affluent Detroit suburb that for decades was one of Michigan’s key bellwether counties. RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said Friday that the committee will appoint election integrity directors in 15 states, including the most contested battlegrounds, and will work with state parties to set up similar programs in other states.
“We need to ensure integrity in our electoral process,” Lara Trump said during the kickoff event in Bloomfield Hills, a suburban county that’s crucial to winning Michigan. “We can never go back and repeat 2020, but we can learn the lessons from 2020.” She said much of the RNC is currently focused on the committee’s election integrity program.
Trump Organization Inc. Executive Vice President Eric Trump, left, and Republican National Committee Co-Chairman Lara Trump, right, during a news conference at Trump Tower in New York on Friday, May 31, 2024. (Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Both parties have a long history of organizing supporters to serve as poll watchers, and the Democratic National Committee said it plans its own volunteer recruitment effort.
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The RNC initiative comes at a time when the GOP faces a significant disadvantage compared to Democrats in terms of traditional grassroots political infrastructure such as campaign offices, community centers and canvassers in key states, according to the Associated Press. President Biden’s campaign and its allies have Democratic National Committee has opened hundreds of campaign offices across the country, while in many cases Republican officials are still waiting for the Trump campaign and the RNC to join.
Lara Trump speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on February 22, 2024 in National Harbor, Maryland. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
DNC spokesman Alex Floyd said that the DNC, “along with our partners at the state and local levels, will not allow this to happen.” MAGA Republicans We have been able to survive these baseless attacks on our democracy, and we will continue to use every tool available to us to ensure that all Americans can make their voices heard at the ballot box.”
The RNC leadership, which former President Trump handpicked in a major committee shakeup earlier this year, has followed his lead in predicting the possibility of a fraud in this year’s election. Lara Trump clarified her answer on CNN earlier this month when asked if she would accept the results of the election.
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“What I can tell you is that yes, if we believe this election was free, fair and transparent, we will accept the results,” she said. “And we are working tirelessly to ensure that that is the case.”
When asked Friday if the committee planned to challenge the election certification process in states where Trump might lose by narrow margins, Whatley said, “We’re not going to cross any of those bridges right now.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
