Early voting for the presidential election begins in September, and election integrity needs to be a top priority. Trump leads in polls, but a slim margin can be unfairly overcome by last-minute drop-box ballot dumps or mailed-in ballots not received until after Election Day.
Fortunately, the Republican National Committee (RNC), which just wrapped up its spring meeting at and near Mar-a-Lago in Florida, steps up its efforts to combat election fraud. Led by Michael Whatley as its new chairman, along with the telegenic Lara Trump as co-chair, the RNC has filed dozens of lawsuits in swing states to ensure compliance with laws concerning mail-in voting.
Last Friday, the RNC sued to stop the counting of ballots after Election Day in Nevada. The U.S. Constitution requires that there be one election day, not a week’s or month’s worth of backroom ballot counting.
Whatley said about monitoring elections, “You got to have observers and attorneys in the room when the votes are being cast, and when the votes are being counted. So we’re in the process of recruiting tens of thousands of volunteers, thousands of attorneys all across the country so that when we get into the election season, we’re going to be in the room.”
Last week help surprisingly came from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, where three Democrat-appointed judges sided with Republicans to vote 10-4 to deny reconsideration of a good decision upholding the statute requiring signatures and dates on mail-in ballot envelopes in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court had already approved this, but this litigation in federal court had prevented it from being enforced, and even now the ACLU vows to seek further review.
Whatley, whose emphasis on election integrity in 2020 in North Carolina enabled Trump to win that hotly contested battleground state, applauds this ruling as “a crucial victory for election integrity and voter confidence.” Whatley has led the RNC to file additional lawsuits in 23 states to enhance election integrity as posted on protecthevote.com.
In 2020 Pennsylvania allowed 2.7 million mailed-in ballots without any verification of signature or requirement of a witness or notary. Even far-Left California at least ostensibly requires verification of signatures on mailed-in ballots.
Poll watchers traditionally safeguarded election integrity by watching what happens at precincts as people vote in person. Trump and other Republicans repeatedly win the in-person voting by landslides, only to have the elections taken away from them based on millions of ballots cast in a process that bypasses poll watching.
Ballot harvesting and drop-box ballot dumping, by which workers hired by Democrats bundle large numbers of ballots, combine with mostly unverified millions of mail-in ballots to overwhelm the voters who cast their ballots in-person on Election Day. There should be transparency as to who cast these mail-in ballots and what their alleged signatures look like, but candidates are denied any way to protect against fraudulent voting practices by opponents.
The RNC sued Arizona and Michigan to require them to perform signature matching on mail-in ballots. Without signature matching, Democrats can send in hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots using hired operatives while bypassing the voters themselves.
Michigan and Nevada, two must-win states for both Trump and Biden this year, have been slow in purging their election rolls of people who died or moved away. The RNC compared census data to voter registration and found discrepancies, and sued to enforce the federal law that requires these states to eliminate the phony voters.
Overpaid consultants do not win elections; volunteers do. More than half of the fundraising by RNC and Trump for the month of April came from small donors, and these grassroots are who need to be mobilized to overcome the monetary and media advantages held by Democrats.
Liberals obtained numerous court orders in their favor in 2020 to invalidate good laws, and they are suing again this cycle in places like the pivotal must-win state of Wisconsin. A lawsuit by progressives there seeks to toss out a reasonable law that requires all ballots be counted by 8 pm the evening of Election Day.
The RNC sought to intervene to defend this law, stating that it establishes “appropriate safeguards and transparency while still offering voters ample opportunities to cast a ballot.” Lawsuits like this should not be decided without the full participation of the affected Republican Party, but a state court unjustifiably blocked RNC and the local GOP from intervening.
Some wonder if Republican polling leads will be enough to overcome a predictable repetition of ballot harvesting, drop-box ballot dumping, and unverified mail-in signatures by Democrats. In the key swing states of the last two election cycles, oversight was not allowed by poll watchers to monitor signatures on millions of mail-in ballots.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.