As the
Republican National Committee (RNC) shifts much of its 2024 focus to ensuring
election integrity, RNC officials discussed the measures they’re undertaking to ensure that America’s 2024 election is fair and secure. Earlier, the RNC announced the creation of an election integrity division, focused on issues like legal fights across the
United States, ballot watching, and other measures. RNC Chairman Michael Whatley and RNC co-chair Lara Trump, former President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, discussed what those strategies will look like during an April 7 appearance on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” The appearance comes after
President Trump raised a record-shattering $50 million during an April 6 fundraiser in Palm Beach,
Florida. Meanwhile, the RNC is working closer than ever with the
Trump campaign following the resignation of former chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, which Ms. Trump said would ensure that funding is being used at optimal efficiency. Asked by anchor Maria Bartiromo where President Trump’s newly raised $50 million fundraising haul would go, Mr. Whatley replied, “We are going to spend every single dollar that we raise on two key critical core missions for the RNC, which are getting out the vote and protecting the ballot.” Ms. Trump echoed the sentiment. Election integrity “is vital,” Ms. Trump said. “It is the No. 1 thing that we are focused on aside from getting out the vote. “We are ensuring that this election we are leaving nothing to chance,” she added, saying the RNC “is focused like a laser” on election integrity. The funds garnered by President Trump last night will go a long way to achieving that goal, Ms. Trump said. “We have the funding now to ensure we can train poll workers, not just have poll watchers, that we can have lawyers in every voting precinct necessary across this country,” Ms. Trump said. “We are making sure that we leave nothing to chance because we have to understand the importance of this election.” Mr. Whatley explained further what the RNC’s election integrity push entails. “First, we’ve got to make sure that we have the rules of the road in place in every state to ensure a fair election,” Mr. Whatley said. “So we are working with state legislatures, we’re working with boards of
elections, we’re working with secretaries of state to make sure that we get the rules of the road right and if they’re not, we’re gonna go file lawsuits.” He cited 80 such lawsuits already filed in the RNC across 24 different states. “Secondly, we are recruiting and training tens of thousands of observers, and we’re recruiting and training thousands of attorneys to make sure that we are in the room whenever a vote is being cast and a vote has been counted,” he added. In addition, Mr. Whatley said the RNC is forming election integrity councils in each of the major battleground states. “What we want are fair, accurate, secure, and transparent elections, and when we have it, then we’re going to protect the sanctity of that ballot,” Mr. Whatley said. “We’re going to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.” He specifically cited the battleground states of
Pennsylvania,
Arizona, Michigan, Georgia, and Wisconsin, all key states won by President Trump in 2016 but lost in 2020. Election integrity has been a core concern among
Republicans for years now, particularly in the wake of the still-controversial 2020 election. Many Republicans have expressed concerns that that race was marked by widespread election fraud that may have affected the final results, particularly in states like Georgia and Arizona. Others have expressed concerns about the last-minute election rule changes pursued during the COVID-19 era, often by actors other than state legislatures—alterations to the rules which critics condemned as unconstitutional.