Trump, GOP urge early and mail voting while continuing to raise specter of voter fraud

Detroit – Four years later Detroit Convention Center was the center of conspiracy theories and baseless claims of voter fraud, thousands of Republicans returned to the building last weekend to prepare for The November Rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. So-called election integrity efforts and debunked claims of voter fraud have been repeatedly invoked, this time to convince GOP voters to turn out in force in November.

Charlie Kirk, the influential leader of the conservative organization Turning Point Action, took the stage to kick off his organization’s “People’s Convention” in downtown Detroit last Friday and called the place where he was speaking a “crime scene.” “. He reported debunked allegations that thousands of illegal mail and early ballots were delivered and tabulated in secret, resulting in a stolen victory for President Biden.

A Michigan judge ruled that allegations of mass voter fraud at the then-called TCF Center were “incorrect and unreliable.”

Now, Kirk’s group, Turning Point Action, alongside the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee President Michael Whatley and Co-President Lara Trump – are trying to convince GOP voters to adopt the same voting options – including in-person early voting, mail-in voting and drop boxes.

Kirk’s group hopes to hire an army of a thousand organizers in swing states to “chase the vote” by encouraging conservative voters to register and make plans to vote in November, but also to trust that no matter how they vote, their vote will be counted accurately. Rebuilding that trust is easier said than done, admit he and Lara Trump, who is Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law.

“There’s a lot of hesitation and skepticism, but it’s waning with some types of people in the conservative movement, because they say, ‘Look, mail-in voting isn’t safe,’ and I share some of those concerns,” Kirk said of Republican Skepticism.

He pointed to The Loss of Kari Lake of the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial race as a moment when he realized that Republicans must embrace “election month,” as he put it, and not just Election Day.

“This triggered a lot of introspection in our team. And I thought, why aren’t we adopting, you know, this kind of methodology, we may not like it, but losing is much worse,” Kirk said. “I think the movement is looking at it the same way.”

“People are very intelligent; have legitimate concerns,” he continued. “But we’re really left with a binary choice: Do we keep doing what we’re doing, which is trying to get, you know, 70 to 80 million votes in a 12-hour period, right? , especially with low[propensity] voters, which… our side absolutely needs it, and we will do our best in a 30 to 35 day period.”

But whether that message will get through to GOP voters after four years of being told that the 2020 elections was rigged and stolen from the Republicans remains to be seen. And the party has not yet fully archived its 2020 playbook.

As the Turning Point conference kicked off in Detroit, Whatley and Lara Trump were 45 minutes north in Oakland County, Michigan, where they kicked off the RNC’s “Protect the Vote” tour, renewing the party’s emphasis on hiring election workers , election observers, and election lawyers heading into November in swing states where the outcome is historically close.

As Whatley addressed the crowd of a few hundred people at the Oakland County Republican Party headquarters in Bloomfield Hills, one attendee spoke up and said the 2020 election was not stolen. Other attendees immediately booed and shouted with phrases like “it was totally stolen!”

“What I will say is that everyone in this room, including me and [Lara Trump] is absolutely committed to ensuring the 2024 elections are fair, accurate, secure and transparent,” Whatley responded, as the crowd continued to berate the man.

Lara Trump and Whatley say they plan to be patient as they try to convince GOP voters to trust the integrity of elections again.

“I think it takes time. It takes time to rebuild trust and we intend to do that,” Lara Trump told CBS News. Whatley is putting together an early voting program to ensure Republicans have a plan to get their votes counted.

“Are you going to vote on Election Day? Are you going to vote early? Are you going to vote by mail? Make sure you go ahead and get your ballot,” he said.

“The biggest fraud occurs when our people don’t vote,” Kirk said, in response to the same question. “So that’s where I’m making the point. Everyone has a role to play. And the biggest fraud is when our people stay at home.”

On Saturday morning at the “People’s Convention,” the Michigan Trump campaign and state GOP officials were repeatedly pressed by attendees about why they weren’t doing more to challenge voting machines, another hot-button issue for election conspiracy theorists. like Mike Lindell, who also spoke at the conference and shared the same concerns.

“We need to get rid of the crime involved, and that involves getting rid of voting machines,” Lindell told CBS News. Lindell has repeatedly embraced disproven and fraudulent theories about the 2020 and 2022 elections, but told CBS she was “happy” Trump and the RNC have been telling voters that the Republican Party needs to win by a margin so large it is “too big to rig.” It has been a common refrain from the former president in recent months.

Ronald Singer, a resident of Macomb County, Michigan, who attended Saturday’s session, praised Trump for urging his supporters to vote early.

“That’s what he’s doing, trying to convince them [to trust elections] because for many, many years, you know, a lifetime, you’ve been taught that there is an Election Day and that elections happen on Election Day.” Singer said. “Some funny things happen now where it seems like it doesn’t take hours, but days or perhaps more. But what it’s going to take is some time to change people.”

At a May Trump rally in Freeland, Michigan, the Michigan Republican Party recorded signs around the site – including porta-potties – and state party members signed up participants to be campaign volunteers as soon as they arrived at the event.

One volunteer who was trying to recruit other volunteers to “protect the vote” said she was skeptical about this renewed effort.

“I would never vote by mail,” said Flint resident Teri Cawood, adding that although Trump and his allies are promoting early and mail-in voting, she doesn’t trust it. “Maybe a little if he’s saying that, but I don’t know,” Cawood hedged.

But when Trump headlined the Turning Point rally last Saturday, his message ran counter to Republican efforts to encourage absentee voting. He warned the thousands in attendance to “watch your vote” because “they” – the Democrats – would “destroy” and “terminate” your votes in November.

“I told Charlie [Kirk] and I said to Michael [Whatley], I said, ‘Listen, we don’t need votes. We had more votes than anyone has ever had. We need to watch the vote. We need to protect the vote. We’ve got to stop the steal,'” Trump told the crowd. “You know these mail-in ballots are treacherous, they’re treacherous… These locked boxes are horrible, horrible, and we’re going to change that, but we have to win the election to change it. there.”