As we enter the final weeks before Election Day, the battle over mass mail-in voting is heating up in the courts and at the ballot box. Democrats have spent months trying to greatly expand mail-in voting, early voting, and allowing ballots to be received after Election Day. But Republicans are fighting back, in the courts but also on the ground. The Republican National Committee has launched the Army for Trump, a grassroots effort to recruit and mobilize thousands of volunteers to help the president's campaign and fight Democrat shenanigans in the election.
"The Army for Trump involves getting active online or being a digital activist, it involves being a volunteer and doing door-knocking, it involves hosting a MAGA-meetup or a virtual event," says Liz Harrington, RNC national spokesperson. "It allows us to be able to recognize different areas where we want more voters to be engaged...so in other words it's about more people voting, not less."
One of the biggest parts of the Army for Trump is sending poll watchers, or monitors, to voting sites to ensure everything is being done on the up-and-up. Poll watchers have been used by both parties for centuries, but the left is crying foul this time. Democrats and so-called "non-partisan" voting rights advocates have criticized the Army for Trump effort, claiming it is an effort to intimidate or suppress voters.
Harrington says they are simply looking to level the playing field. "Democrats are trying to get activist judges to change the laws already on the books protecting our ballot security and protecting election integrity," she tells KTRH.
"We're fighting Democrats' attempts to use this pandemic to give themselves an edge," she continues. "They want to manipulate the system and flood the zone with all these extra ballots out there...that's not the way a first-world country should conduct an election."