The Republican parties in a trio of battleground states have sent mailings to registered GOP voters encouraging them to cast absentee ballots for November’s general elections.
Republican voters in Arizona, North Carolina and Pennsylvania have all received mail correspondence imploring them to utilize their state’s mail-in voting system, NBC News reported Friday.
Arizona Republicans have received a mailer featuring a quote from President Trump talking about absentee voting.
“I will be an absentee voter. We have a lot of absentee voters. It works, so we are in favor of absentee,” the quote reportedly reads.
Trump, whose official residence is in Florida at his Mar-a-Lago resort, has voted absentee while in office, despite continuously slamming efforts by Democrats to expand mail-in voting amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The mailer received by North Carolina Republicans is similar to the Arizona one, but with a different quote from Trump in which he discusses the security of absentee voting.
“Absentee Ballots are fine because you have to go through a precise process to get your voting privilege,” the flyer reportedly says, referencing a Trump quote from July.
Pennsylvania GOP voters also received a mailer about absentee voting. The party’s website offers more details on how to vote absentee.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report lists Arizona and North Carolina as “toss-ups,” while Pennsylvania is “lean Democrat” for the presidential election. Trump won all three states in 2016.
Republican officials in those states have sought to make a distinction between absentee voting and mail-in voting.
“North Carolina’s system is substantially different than the radical all-mail election scheme implemented at the last minute, where millions of ballots are mailed out indiscriminately based on incomplete data,” North Carolina GOP press secretary Tim Wigginton told NBC. “We, along with President Trump, oppose these hastily enacted all-mail voting schemes that ignore common-sense safeguards.”
North Carolina voters must request an absentee ballot before having the option to mail it back or deliver it to a polling place in person.
“Voting by absentee ballot in North Carolina — which is the same thing as voting by mail — is safe, secure and reliable,” Austin Cook, communications director for the North Carolina Democratic Party, told the network. “[Trump’s] disingenuous attacks are hypocritical and hollow, and as the latest absentee ballot request figures show, they aren’t tamping down the enthusiasm voters here have to replace him in November.”
As a result of the pandemic, only half a dozen states this election cycle are requiring residents to have an excuse to vote by mail or absentee.