The campaign for President Joe Biden is looking for Republicans to drop their many lawsuits related to mail-in ballots now that former President Donald Trump has started an effort to encourage other forms of voting.
"If Donald Trump is serious about finally recognizing that mail voting is a great option for voters to utilize this November, he should demand the RNC and his MAGA allies drop every one of these lawsuits throughout the country," Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said Thursday.
Last week the Republican National Committee launched the "Swamp the Vote" initiative to promote the use of absentee, mail-in ballots, and early in-person voting.
Democrats have tried to pin Republicans in general and Trump specifically as flip-floppers on the issue of mail ballots.
The RNC currently has ballot return challenges in several states including Illinois, Mississippi, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.
"I just encourage voting period, but certainly early voting is something that is happening," Trump told Scripps News' Charles Benson in May.
"I want to get back to paper ballots, same-day voting, and voter ID – that's what we really should have. Because the voting, the elections are not secure, and Wisconsin was a good case of that."
Yet the issue of ballot integrity is something RNC Chair Michael Whately has said is a top priority under his leadership.
The RNC "will be focused like a laser on getting out the vote and protecting the ballot," Whately said in March.
"The right to vote should never be up for debate. Eligible voters should feel confident that their vote will be counted and that the 2024 election will be free and fair," Chavez Rodriguez said.
Republicans fired back Thursday saying Democrats are conflating two issues and there is no contradiction between supporting mail voting and making it more secure.
"Democrats are playing dumb about a very simple concept: We support mail voting, but we also support safeguards to make mail voting secure," Danielle Alvarez, a spokeswoman for the RNC and the Trump campaign, said.
"It's really not hard: The left should stop its assault on the foundation of our election system and accept that Americans don't agree with their extreme attempts to make voting less secure."
James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.
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