Former President Donald Trump announced he’s launching a move to increase and encourage Republican early voting as well as the use of mail-in and absentee ballots in the upcoming November presidential election, reversing course on previous comments he’s made about the practice.
Calling the campaign “Swamp the Vote,” the former president said that “Republicans must win, and we will use every appropriate tool to beat the Democrats because they are destroying our country,” according to a news release issued on Tuesday.
“Whether you vote absentee, by mail, early in-person, or on election day, we are going to protect the vote. We make sure your ballot is secure and your voice is heard. We must swamp the radical Democrats with massive turnout,“ he said in the release. ”The way to win is to swamp them, if we swamp them with votes they can’t cheat. You need to make a plan, register, and vote any way possible. We have got to get your vote.”
The program appears to be the successor to the Republican National Committee’s “Bank Your Vote” plan that was started under former Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who departed the RNC earlier this year.
The former president has long been critical of mail-in ballots and absentee voting, notably during the 2020 presidential election cycle. He has said that the practice leads to an increase in fraudulent votes being cast and wants to have it ended.
“We have to get rid of mail-in ballots because once you have mail-in ballots, you have crooked elections,” President Trump said in his victory speech following the Iowa caucuses in January.
However, President Trump has also recently suggested that Republicans need to embrace early voting and so-called “ballot harvesting” in states that allow it.
“In the states where ballot harvesting is still legal, we have no choice but to beat the Democrats at their own game,” President Trump said last year. “Either we start ballot harvesting or you can just wave goodbye to our country … we have to get smart.”
