For months, the Trump Victory Fund – the joint operation between the presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee – coordinated with local party officials to train field operations and volunteers to spread the word about how to vote by mail. have to. Much of that effort involves combating misinformation that came directly from the president.
This month, CNN got a close look at how the loyal party is learning to spread this message in Bucks County, a politically divided suburb of Philadelphia. In a room in the back of the province’s longtime headquarters, a group of about twenty volunteers wearing masks and waiting for seedbreads listened intently as local operative Trump Victory Field explained how a mobile app with doors could be used. A few ongoing volunteers reminded their fellow trainees to make a personal connection with each voter. The main goal was to encourage people to vote the way they wanted to – including voters who might want to learn more about voting by mail.
“If those are the rules we play by, then great, we’ll play by those rules,” said Rick Gorka, a Trump Victory spokesman who attended Bucks County training. “The result we need [is] voters to vote, however, they vote. “
More evil than good
This has led to suspicion among some Republican-leaning voters of the practice, and caused frustration among administration officials and GOP allies who believe the president’s rhetoric is doing more harm than good.
“It’s not smart,” one administration official said of Trump’s comments, noting the likelihood that the pandemic will vote in person, at least in some areas, is impossible. “When we are finally forced to have emails, it’s our people who do not vote because they do not trust the system.”
The magnitude of the problem is evident in the amount of work and money behind the GOP’s post-in-vote push.
Trump Victory is big as it has more than 1,500 paid staff members and a volunteer corps of nearly 2 million people as the central part of its aggressive campaign to both register and vote for voters on voting laws and voting dates in their state. And RNC’s $ 300 million voter data investment lets you know exactly where to release this machine, and provides insight into who exactly needs to be targeted and with what information, even if the system changes daily. According to one RNC official, these voters receive constant reminders via phone calls, text messages and emails about when to return their vote.
In addition, the Trump campaign on Wednesday posted a video of the president absent his signed ballot box from Florida and urging others to “immediately cast your absent votes.”
Earlier this month, the campaign launched a bus tour aimed in part at encouraging post-in-votes in various swing states, and has targeted local politicians and surrogates, including members of the president’s own family.
“In Florida, you have an honest system, so vote absent. Your vote will be counted; it really is,” Eric Trump told his father’s supporters at the launch of the bus trip to Sunshine State. Florida does not distinguish between absent votes and vote-by-post.
One source familiar with the march says it expects to see more positive messages and potential commentators when sending emails as the march continues through the country and Republicans are trying to counter Trump with knowledge.
Patchwork of state laws
Complicating matters for the Trump Victory team is the patchwork of state laws and rules for submitting mail-in nationwide. In some states, every registered voter is automatically sent a vote, also called universal mail-in-vote, while in others a voter must first request one, which is closer to what is known as a voting vote. Still other states do not have e-mail ballots by mail, but instead have extensive access to absentee ballots by requiring no apology – in fact, they create post-vote ballots.
In total, 43 states offer some form of or non-excuse as universal post-in-votes.
In his critique of postal voting, Trump has tried to draw a distinction, repeatedly questioning how safe the universal or no excuse for post-voting is, and falsely suggesting that in states like California ballots be sent to undocumented immigrants, if that in Nevada or New York, both of which have recently expanded mail-in delivery, abounding in unrest.
Outside of a handful of states where post-in voting has long been established, universal post-in-voting is relatively new or has rarely been used for the pandemic. That includes several key states for the Trump campaign, including Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio. The work of parties and campaigns in those places is central to educating voters unfamiliar with these new options.
Rich Leary, president of the Brunswick County Republican Party in North Carolina, told CNN that much of his work – at party offices as well as at virtual events – is answering voters’ questions about how to apply for and receive mood.
“This is getting a lot of attention now,” Leary said.
But the president’s constant criticism of voting via mail-in is seldom clear or specific.
Republican operatives and activists in states with mail-in voting options are struggling to counter these messages as they work to get their voters to vote. One election adviser described sad conversations with election officials across the country who are getting calls from voters who are too scared of coronavirus to vote in person, and now their vote is going to be lost.
All that is compounded by the typical Republican aversion to voting by mail.
“Our voters are more traditional,” Gorka said of Trump Victory. “They would like to vote in the election on election day.”
Some local party activists have rejected Trump’s claims and are trying to dispel misinformation about the practice.
“I’ve heard President Trump talk about it, but the devil is in the details,” said Jim Foreman, president of the Blair County Republican Party in Pennsylvania. Foreman said he was trying to emphasize security against malfeasance in Pennsylvania’s own ballot legislation in the ballot when he cites it as a credible fall choice.
“When you say email voting, people admire an idea that has been set for them,” he said.
The problem for Republicans is that Trump is often the one who upholds that idea.
Insert the work
For the well-funded GOP operation, it is all about talking to as many voters as possible. According to the RNC official, Trump Victory has already made contact with 70 million voters this cycle through a strict door-to-door campaign that is still ongoing, even during the pandemic. The outreach also involved hours of phone calls – double the amount of outreach the RNC did in 2016.
And when it comes to mailing in specific votes, the RNC has hosted dozens of “Trump Victory Leadership Initiative Trainings” hosted both virtually and personally to “give voters up and act on various voting methods and state laws” – including mail-ins and absentees.
At one recent Trump Victory training in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, volunteers were taught how to use a door-knocking mobile app to send critical voter information back to the RNC database. In Pennsylvania, that information includes the question of whether a voter is purposeful or interested in using a mail message. Since the state passed a law in 2019, registered voters can submit a ballot box.
Under Covid-19, Pennsylvania voters benefited from the process. More than 1.2 million post-ballots and 1.3 million abstentions were cast in the June primary in Pennsylvania. That’s more than 30 times the number of absentee ballots in the state’s 2016 primary election.
Brittney Robinson, the state director for Trump Victory in Pennsylvania, told CNN that informing voters about this option is an important part of their effort to get it.
“It used to be that we only get about five to six percent of voters in Pennsylvania to vote by absentee ballot. It’s less restrictive now, so we want to make sure we benefit from it,” said Robinson, who led the training session. and oversees more than 120 paid Trump Victory staff members in Pennsylvania – all working with local party chairmen, activists and volunteers to spread the word about post-in-votes.
Kelly Bellerby-Allen, a candidate for state representative from Croydon who attended the training in Doylestown, told CNN that most Republican voters are looking forward to voting in person, but that because of COVID they are encouraging older voters to vote in their polls. mail. Bellerby-Allen tells friends the same thing, especially those who work all day and may not have time to vote in person.
“I tell her, ‘Get that post-in vote,'” she said.
.
