One of the biggest lessons conservatives took out of the post-mortem of the 2020 presidential cycle was that we need to do a much better job of combatting the mechanisms by which the Left tries to commit fraud to win elections.
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We also learned over time that something the Republican National Committee (RNC) leadership didn’t seem to take as seriously as it should have in the last general election was the issue of election fraud, aided and abetted by Democrat efforts on absentee and/or mail-in ballots
As many readers know, the national party cleaned house this spring, and is now headed by Trump allies, Chairman Michael Whatley and co-chairperson Lara Trump–something a bright ray of sunlight from my colleague Jennifer Van Laar’s investigations reportedly helped prompt in March.
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Now, there’s another positive update, this time on the RNC’s taking a metaphorical broom to the rampant election fraud issue in several states. My colleague at sister site Townhall.com, Rebecca Downs, reported earlier on this effort, including a Katie Pavlich piece on their winning a suit to secure electi ons in Pennsylvania in August:
The RNC is gearing up for the upcoming November election by keeping an eye out on protecting voter integrity. Last month, as Katie covered, the RNC scored such a victory in Pennsylvania to do with mail ballots.
Downs added that the group has stayed over the target, now pushing on to another state over its willful use of “unlawful” policies on absentee ballots in hopes of swinging a major swing state into the Democrat win column in November:
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On Thursday, the RNC announced that they, along with the North Carolina GOP (NCGOP) and a North Carolina voter, filed a lawsuit against the North Carolina State Board of Elections’ (NCSBE) policy on absentee ballots.
As a press release explained, such a policy “disregards election laws requiring absentee ballot security envelopes to be sealed in order for the ballot to count.” Even more important is that it “violates North Carolina state law and weakens absentee ballot safeguards.”
As I previously wrote, it wouldn’t be the first (or last) time NC Democrats have found themselves hauled into court over attempts to commit election interference in the 2024 cycle, with Bobby Kennedy Jr. filing a lawsuit against the Board of Elections.
Read More: RFK Jr. Files Suit After Dem State Board of Elections Refuses to Take Him Off North Carolina Ballot
The RNC’s press release continued by asserting the NC Democrat officials’ policy “directly conflicts” with state law that directs how the ballots must be secured once the department receives them:
“The revised Numbered Memo states that absentee ballots do not need to be returned in sealed container-return envelopes in order to count. This policy directly conflicts with the statutes specifying absentee ballots must be returned in sealed container-return envelopes.”
Downs helpful summarized the series of actions by both the state Board of Elections and the Republicans that prompted the suit here:
….[The] RNC, NCGOP, and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) requested a Declaratory Ruling from the NCSBE on May 20 about whether instructions to Numbered Memo 2021-03 is contrary to the state law.
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Predictably, the Board pushed back in late July, she wrote, then “issued a written opinion” just over a month ago.
Chairman Whatley commented on that decision in a release Thursday explaining the lawsuit and restating the RNC’s commitment to “fight for election integrity”:
“This decision by the NCSBE is inconsistent with state law and diminishes protections for absentee ballots. We have filed suit to uphold election integrity and ballot safeguards. State law lays out clear requirements, and the NCSBE must follow them — we will continue to fight for election integrity in the Old North State.”
I’m heartened by stories like the ones about PA and NC, with the election just a frog’s hop from today. Words from Republican leadership have so often been mere words in the past, sometimes scrawled on sternly worded letters to the corrupt members of progressive-captured bodies like the current U.S. Senate or this White House and its useless, corrupt henchmen. There’s at least a sliver of a sign here that we’re moving in the right direction to make sure every legal vote counts in 2024. As we sometimes say, stay tuned!