The GOP has traditionally criticized early mail-in voting, but now state and national Republicans are launching a campaign to get voters to cast their vote before election day.
Governor Joe Lombardo's election reform plan required identification for mail-in voting and tightening the return deadline, but Lombardo is joining Republican leaders in calling for voters to vote early or vote by mail.
On Wednesday, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, Governor Joe Lombardo, and Congressman Mark Amodei were among top Nevada Republican leaders promoting the Bank Your Vote initiative in a press conference.
“The key is to ensure that everybody has the perception that every vote has been counted and ensure that we fight fire with fire," Lombardo told reporters.
Republican National Committee Strategic Communications Director Tommy Pigott tells us that the party is not so much changing their election integrity strategy, but rather adapting to the game.
"Right now we have election seasons, not election day. I can't wait, to use the football, analogy, until the fourth quarter to put points on the board. We have to start putting points on the board every single quarter and the Bank Your Vote initiative is to give Republicans the tools to vote early and bank their votes as soon as possible," explained Pigott.
Even former President Donald Trump joined the call.
"Too long radical democrats have abused and taken advantage of absentee and early voting laws to build a big lead over republicans before election day," said the former president and GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump.
This, in contrast to the Trump campaign's unsuccessful 2020 lawsuit to stop the counting of mail ballots in Clark County during the election.
"Democrats and dangerous groups funded by the far left have simply focused on collecting ballots, that's all they want to do, collecting ballots. But, you know what, it turned out to be not such a bad idea," Trump said in a video.
The goal for the party is to "bank" consistent Republican voters early - so that they can spend more resources going after new and non-partisan voters.
"If you're a Republican voter that votes every election, you might be saying why do I need to bank my vote early? It's because when you do that, it lets campaigns, the RNC, target voters with their resource that maybe haven't voted as often, maybe are those independent voters," explained Pigott.
Another key component is "Protect You Vote." RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said the party had more than 80,000 poll watchers during the 2022 election and they're gearing up to expand their national election integrity operation.
"Our work to protect the vote will be supercharged in 2024 with an even larger team of grassroots leaders and more key lawsuits," said McDaniel.
