The Trump campaign and Republican National Committee (RNC) said Friday it planned to have more than 100,000 attorneys and volunteers in battleground states to monitor vote counting in November’s election.
The campaign announced it would offer training sessions every month on monitoring voting sites and tabulation centers. Poll watchers would be observing and reporting any irregularities, and lawyers would be prepared to respond to any potential issues.
The announcement, which the campaign and RNC dubbed “the most extensive and monumental election integrity program in the nation’s history,” underscores the degree to which former President Trump’s fixation on the false claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent has seeped into his 2024 bid for the White House.
“Having the right people to count the ballots is just as important as turning out voters on Election Day. Republicans are now working together to protect the vote and ensure a big win on November 5th!” Trump said in a statement through his campaign.
The campaign and RNC said they plan to focus on ensuring integrity around early voting, Election Day voting, mail ballot processing, post-election audits and recounts and machine testing. In addition, each battleground state will operate an individual hotline for poll watchers to report potential issues.
“President Trump has said that the Republican victory in November needs to be too big to rig,” RNC general counsel Charlie Spies said in a statement. “The political team will be working to ensure a huge victory for Republicans at all levels, and RNC legal is committed to making sure that victory can’t be rigged.”
The Trump campaign and RNC has said they will take advantage of efforts around early voting and ballot harvesting, where legal, to keep up with Democrats who use the same programs to bank votes ahead of Election Day.
The Trump campaign announcement comes one day after the Justice Department announced an updated website providing resources for election workers and voters as part of an effort to ensure Americans have the right to cast their ballots “free of discrimination, intimidation, or criminal activity in the election process.”
“The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, the right from which all others flow,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “The Justice Department is using every available authority to defend that right, both from efforts to undermine voting rights and from efforts to threaten and intimidate those who administer our elections.”
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The Trump campaign and RNC have invested heavily in election integrity efforts as Trump continues to warn of the threat of Democrats rigging the election against him, despite there being no evidence of widespread fraud in 2020.
Numerous lawsuits the Trump campaign filed regarding the 2020 election were dismissed by judges, including those appointed by Republican presidents. Trump is facing criminal charges in Georgia and in Washington, D.C., over his attempts to subvert the election results.
Still, his rhetoric on the topic has become somewhat mainstream among some of the public. A Washington Post/University of Maryland survey published in January found roughly one-third of adults said they do not think President Biden was legitimately elected, and the number of Republicans who said Biden was legitimately elected had dropped to 31 percent.