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Republicans, It’s Time To Get Your Act Together On Early And Mail-In Voting
The Federalist ^ | 01/24/2023 | Scott R. Pressler

Posted on 01/24/2023 9:06:20 AM PST by SeekAndFind

The Republican Party must mobilize a national early and mail-in voting strategy in key states to be competitive in 2024.

For months leading up to the 2022 midterm election, pundits with crystal balls emphatically declared, “The red wave is coming!” To their credit, a perfect storm was brewing: The party out of power historically performs well during a midterm. President Joe Biden’s approval rating was underwater, and working-class families were suffering from the highest inflation rate in more than 40 years. Nonetheless, Republicans only won a narrow majority in the House and lost a Senate seat in Pennsylvania.

What turned the supposed red tsunami into a scarlet trickle? Simply put, the Republican Party failed to adopt a national early and mail-in voting strategy. If Republicans utilized in-person early voting and mail-in voting in Arizona, as they did in Florida, then Kari Lake would almost certainly be governor today.

Since 2020, election integrity has been a top concern for voters. While the general consensus was that Republicans should vote in person on Election Day, this backfired disastrously in 2022: An hour into the election, an estimated 30 percent of Maricopa County polling locations reported problems with machines. Conservative voters who had waited until the last day to cast their ballots were disenfranchised in the ensuing confusion. Ultimately, Lake lost by a mere 17,000 votes. If Republicans had voted early, then they would not have experienced these problems, would have been able to get more Republicans to the polls, and, most importantly, would have won.

In Nevada, Republican senatorial candidate Adam Laxalt lost by only 8,000 votes. Despite there being 654,145 registered Republicans in the state, he earned only 490,388 votes. If we assume that not a single independent vote was cast for Laxalt, this means that 163,757 registered Republicans were not mobilized to vote for their party’s candidate. When every registered Republican in Nevada had a ballot in their mailbox 20 days before the election, and ballot harvesting is entirely legal under state law, there is no excuse for not achieving near-record Republican turnout — especially in a state that was forecasting snow and inclement weather on Election Day.

Republican officials did not use every electoral tool to their advantage, and Republican voters suffered because of it.

For all of the post-mortems citing candidate quality as the reason for losing Pennsylvania, they are missing the point: It is a cold numbers game. By the time Republican senatorial candidate Mehmet Oz debated his opponent, more than 500,000 Pennsylvanians had already turned in their mail-in and absentee ballots. Moreover, of those ballots, 407,062 were returned by registered Democrats and 107,086 from Republicans. It didn’t matter that Oz received more votes on Election Day because Democrats were locking in votes and chasing ballots 50 days prior.

And with those 50 days of possible early voting, it is inexcusable that by the end of Election Day, more than 1 million registered Republicans had not voted. Voters and activists should be livid about these failures and vow never again to waste a single day of early voting.

Republican voters should vote as early as possible so that campaign money is spent targeting an increasingly dwindling number of voters every day as the election nears. For the party that supposedly respects the laws of economics, it is the clear economical way to spend valuable campaign cash since more dollars to fewer people means more dollars spent per voter!

Republicans need our dedicated voters voting early, and then they need activists and leaders working to utilize every day as an opportunity to drive turnout — if Republicans refocus their campaigns into logistical machines, they are never going to lose an election again.

This problem — this fixable, albeit tediously difficult problem — is the genesis of the creation of Early Vote Action PAC. EVA is going to organize and mobilize, devoid of insider political drama plaguing the RNC and the D.C. swamp, and lead the way in ensuring that every right-leaning American is registered to vote and excited to vote early, whether by mail or in person. And by achieving this goal, Early Vote Action PAC is going to ensure that 2024 is a year of Republican victories.

Early Vote Action PAC is focused on helping Republicans win in Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina in 2024. If Republicans can win these states, they will have the necessary 270 electoral votes to take back the White House, the Senate, and a southern governor’s mansion. House seats will be flipped, then state house and state senate seats will be flipped, then local seats will be flipped — in an ode to the Gipper, we will call it “Trickle-Down Organizing.”

Last, Early Vote Action is going to be setting up shop around the country, finding committed, excited Republican activists to help drive turnout in key states so that underutilized Republican voters in deep-red districts and deep-blue districts alike, men and women ignored by leaders and consultants because their districts are impossibly lost or unimaginably safe, can take part in flipping swing states through letter writing, phone banking, and whatever else it takes to get out the vote by Election Day.

It is time for the Republican Party to get back to its organizing roots. It is time to think about nothing other than early Republican mobilization. And it is time to stop losing to the Democrats.


Scott R. Presler is among the foremost grassroots activists in the Republican Party. His efforts, from registration drives to get-out-the-vote programs, have helped Republicans succeed around the country and were instrumental in seeing New York and Florida achieve notable victories in the 2022 cycle. To learn more about Scott’s latest project to bolster Republicans around the county, visit earlyvoteaction.com or email info@earlyvoteaction.com.


TOPICS: Parties; State and Local; U.S. Congress; U.S. Senate
KEYWORDS: 2024; gop; mailinvoting
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To: discostu

You may have a point. I now suspect things work differently from what we have always been led to believe.


41 posted on 01/24/2023 1:53:07 PM PST by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp

In 2003 I read, right here on FR, a fantastic article about our electoral trends. It really dug into it all. It was shocking how predictable our elections are. Basically 2020 was our first election since that article that didn’t follow the pattern. And that’s really why I want to break the 2 party system. Only way to end the pattern.


42 posted on 01/24/2023 2:06:41 PM PST by discostu (like a dog being shown a card trick)
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To: oldguy1776
It is lame to pretend that the overwhelming majority of people can not get to the polls.

The few who can not have been, since forever, been allowed to vote by mail.

But opening the floodgates and allowing everyone to vote for the bogus reason of convenience is what gets us into our current situation.

Your 'disenfranchising' comment just shows me you have swallowed the Rat argument hook line and sinker and are using their words and slogans. You are being a mouthopiece for the Rats.

People need to get off their asses and physically present to vote using paper ballots.

Those ballots need to be counted and reported within four hours.

No machines allowed.

Fix those things and the problem will be solved.

43 posted on 01/26/2023 10:40:40 AM PST by caddie (We must all become Trump, starting now!)
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To: caddie

I disagree. And your mouth piece comment hi-lites exactly the problem we have in this country. If someone has a different view than yours then they are labeled as “the bad guy” or in your case as being a mouth piece. Your proposed solution is simplistic. Parts might work but to flatly state that solves the problem is short sighted in my opinion.

I’ll be sure and let the senior citizen who has no way to get to the polling place know that you don’t care if they vote because they are lazy or that mailing in their ballot, and no I’m not talking about absentee ballots, might jeopardize your solution. And to use your vernacular ..”It’s lame to pretend people can get to the polls”.

Do I have the perfect solution...No. But I am not going to discount any proposed solution as long as it benefits We the People.


44 posted on 01/26/2023 11:03:07 AM PST by oldguy1776
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