Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) and daughter-in-law of former President Trump, vowed on Friday to prosecute anyone who commits election fraud.
“This year is the year to do just that,” Lara Trump said at the Turning Point USA convention in Detroit, Mich. “We’re also sending a clear message to anyone who seeks to steal an election: We will find you, we will pursue you and we will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”
The Republican National Committee on Friday launched a battleground states initiative to mobilize thousands of poll watchers, poll workers and lawyers as “election integrity” monitors in November.
Lara Trump said the goal is to recruit more than 100,000 election observers and 500 lawyers to deploy at election sites across the country.
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Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump speaks onstage during the 2024 Turning Point People’s Convention at Huntington Place on June 14, 2024 in Detroit, Michigan. (Jeff Kowalski/AFP via Getty Images)
For decades, the Republican National Committee’s ability to coordinate poll monitoring and other election integrity efforts was limited by a federal court consent decree imposed to stop Republican-backed voter intimidation. The decree was lifted in 2018.
“We have a unique opportunity right now that we haven’t had in 40 years as a political party. For 40 years the Republican National Committee had a consent decree that prohibited them from training poll workers,” Lara Trump said at a Turning Point USA event. “Who was training all those people for the last 40 years? Not the Republican National Committee. Think about how many people the Democratic National Committee trained.”
“So now we have a great opportunity to be able to train people to work at the polling stations, and also to work at the counting centers once the mail-in ballots arrive. And we want to have lawyers working at all the major polling stations so we can be proactive rather than reactive,” she said.
The RNC said the new effort would focus on thwarting possible “attempts by Democrats to circumvent the rules.” The party plans to deploy observers to monitor every step of the election process, set up a hotline for poll watchers to report potential problems, and escalate issues through legal action.
The RNC’s kickoff event was held at the headquarters of the Oakland County Republican Party, one of Michigan’s most influential local parties. Oakland County is an affluent suburb of Detroit and has been one of Michigan’s flagship counties for decades. RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said Friday that the committee will place election integrity directors in 15 states, including those with the hottest battles, and will work with state parties to launch similar programs in other states.
“What we need to ensure is the integrity of our election process,” Lara Trump said at a kickoff event in Bloomfield Hills, a suburban county crucial to winning Michigan. “We can’t repeat 2020 again, but we can learn the lessons from 2020,” she said. She said most of the Republican National Committee is now focused on the committee’s election integrity program.
Trump Organization Executive Vice President Eric Trump (left) and Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump (right) speak to reporters at Trump Tower in New York, Friday, May 31, 2024. (Iwamura Yuki/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Both parties have a long history of organizing supporters to act as poll watchers, and the Democratic National Committee said it was planning its own volunteer recruitment drive.
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The RNC’s efforts come as Republicans face a significant disadvantage compared to Democrats in traditional on-the-ground political infrastructure in key states, such as campaign offices, community centers and door-to-door canvassers, according to the Associated Press. While President Biden’s campaign and allies at the DNC have opened hundreds of campaign offices across the country, many GOP officials are still waiting for the Trump campaign and the RNC to get involved.
Lara Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland on February 22, 2024. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
DNC spokesman Alex Floyd said, “The DNC, along with our partners at the state and local levels, will not tolerate MAGA Republicans’ baseless attacks on our democracy, and we will continue to use all tools to ensure that all Americans can make their voice heard at the ballot box.”
The Republican National Committee leadership, handpicked by former President Trump in a major overhaul of the committee earlier this year, has followed Trump’s lead in predicting possible fraud in this year’s election. Asked on CNN earlier this month whether she would accept the election results, Lara Trump qualified her response.
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“I can assure you that if we feel this election was free, fair and transparent, we will accept the results,” she said, “and we are working hard to ensure that happens.”
Asked Friday whether the committee planned to challenge the election certification process in battleground states where Trump could lose narrowly, Whatley said, “We’re not going to cross that bridge at this point.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
