The Republican National Committee is spending millions this year in 16 critical states on an unprecedented push to recruit thousands of poll workers and watchers, adding firepower to a growing effort on the right to find election irregularities that could be used to challenge results.
The RNC was until recently barred from bringing its substantial resources to bear on field operations at polling sites because of a decades-old court order. Now, the party apparatus is mobilizing volunteers to scrutinize voting locations for suspected fraud.
“It’s super, super critical that if issues are identified, they’re identified real time,” Melissa Conway, the RNC’s election integrity state director in Texas, said in a virtual meeting last year, so that Republicans can “have a legal footing in addressing the election and if need be, doing any overturning of the election.”
The new “election integrity” operation, which grew from former president Donald Trump’s complaints about botched legal challenges to the 2020 election and his persistent false claims of mass voting fraud, is already bringing in a significant stream of recruits to swing state voting sites.
The RNC has so far signed up more than 14,000 poll workers and 10,000 poll watchers nationwide, and political director Elliott Echols said the party plans to have more than 5,000 in each state for the November midterms. Republican officials said the project, involving dozens of dedicated staffers, is an effort to level the playing field with Democrats at polling sites.
More than 100 GOP primary winners back Trump’s false fraud claims
“There were there were a lot of problems in 2020, there absolutely were, regardless of what people say,” RNC senior adviser Justin Riemer said. “You don’t have to think the election was stolen to think there were a lot of problems and want to be involved in the process.”
Historically, many poll workers have been retirees who come back election after election, and both parties at the local level have traditionally worked with election officials to staff their precincts.
What’s different is the messaging, both to recruits and to party backers, about the reasons for the plan. While Democrats have set up legal hotlines and mobilized volunteers by stressing a need to help those denied a chance to vote, the Republican operation is centered on challenging ballots, spotting potential fraud — and for poll watchers, reporting those concerns directly to party attorneys on Election Day, according to the RNC.
That worries advocates and some election officials, who say the intense focus on fraud could cause problems at voting sites.
“People shouldn’t have a vested interest one way or another when doing the work of an election inspector,” said Claire Woodall-Vogg, the nonpartisan executive director of Milwaukee’s Election Commission, which received a record number of poll worker appointments from both parties this cycle. “The concern is if they understand that when they’re on the job they should check their politics at the door.”
The RNC’s program is the latest operation on the right since 2020 to focus on the smallest building blocks of American elections: polling precincts where people vote. Stephen K. Bannon, the former Trump strategist who now hosts a popular podcast, has since last year encouraged Trump supporters to fill local party posts as a gateway to monitoring elections. Cleta Mitchell, one of the lawyers involved in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 results, has hosted workshops in swing states attended by RNC and local party officials to discuss mobilizing poll workers and poll watchers.
“We are arming the army of patriots, that’s our goal,” Mitchell recently said on Bannon’s show.
The prospect of election deniers staffing polling precincts raises new concerns for administrators, civil rights groups and Democrats who say that Republicans are positioning themselves to sabotage the casting and counting of ballots in ways they could not in 2020. Some election officials say they’re already seeing poll worker trainees with clear agendas driven by Trump’s claims.
In Brookfield, Wis., a Republican-leaning city outside Milwaukee, City Clerk Michelle Luedtke said one recent trainee asked about Dominion voting machines, a target of false claims of rigged votes by Trump allies; another wanted to know how to check if voters were lying about where they lived. Luedtke said she asked the trainees, who were not party appointees, to meet with her after the session to address their concerns. Neither did, and they did not show up to work the polls.
“I make it clear during training that electioneering in any form will not be tolerated from any poll worker,” Luedtke said. For workers appointed by a party, she can ask the party to address the behavior and submit someone else. “That part gets a little hairy,” she said.
The concern about disruptions inside precincts hasn’t materialized so far in this year’s primaries, since the parties aren’t competing head to head. The RNC is using primaries as a dry run, testing its new operations ahead of the November midterms, and officials say they have seen few issues — and little fraud.
Riemer said overzealous poll watchers would be dismissed, and poll workers are the responsibility of local elections officials.
“You are not seeing examples of the voter fraud police running around stopping people from voting,” Riemer said. “It is specifically stated in the training that they are to be courteous, they are supposed to work cooperatively with the officials and not be in there like a bull in a china shop.”
The RNC’s state-based staffers are holding “election integrity training” events that encourage activists to become poll workers and poll watchers. The RNC says it’s not actually training poll workers at these sessions, because those positions typically require training by local election administrators. Poll watchers, by contrast, are usually trained by local parties. The RNC is also providing reporting software to take reports from poll watchers and connect them with party lawyers ready to sue.
Democrats say that’s a clear contrast to its volunteer recruitment operations.
“Republicans are recruiting and training partisan election deniers as poll workers and watchers, and laying the groundwork to cancel votes in elections they don’t win,” Ammar Moussa, a DNC spokesman, said in a statement. “Meanwhile, the DNC is educating voters on how to become a poll worker and protecting the right to vote. The difference between the two parties’ priorities could not be more stark.”
The RNC is also already using information gathered from its recruits to put additional pressure on election administrators.
The RNC’s state election integrity director in Wisconsin, Ryan Retza, emailed Woodall-Vogg in March to ask about reports from Republican poll workers and watchers saying her staff was accepting multiple ballots from people without checking their IDs. Woodall-Vogg replied that there was no requirement or recommendation to check IDs so she has instructed staff not to, since it might be considered an unlawful imposition. The next day, Woodall-Vogg received a formal letter from a lawyer representing the RNC and the Wisconsin Republican Party citing “firsthand knowledge from observers and inspectors,” using the state’s term for poll watchers and workers. An RNC spokeswoman said the information came from a Republican poll watcher who talked to several poll workers. The lawyer’s letter asked the clerk to instruct her staff to check IDs. She did not respond.
“For too long the power has been with the local election administrators,” Josh Findlay, the RNC’s national director of election integrity, said in a virtual meeting from July 2021. “Hopefully we don’t have to wait until you know the vote has already been cast or whatever it is to sue after the election is already over to try to fix things. We want to be able to catch things in real time.”
The genesis of the RNC’s program came after the 2020 election, as Trump railed for months — without evidence — of mass vote fraud, and as a series of lawsuits led by Rudy Giuliani and based on outlandish claims suggesting voting machines had been manipulated by foreign agents, flopped in court.
Trump repeatedly pressed RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on what she was doing to ensure he could more successfully challenge a 2024 loss.
“We can’t let them steal this one,” he said, according to one person with direct knowledge of his comments, which stem from his baseless claim that mass fraud cost him the 2020 election.
As the RNC came under pressure from Trump, donors, campaign lawyers and its own members to take action on election fraud, it tapped Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway to survey Republican voters on how many believed the election was stolen. It found about 70 percent who said they did, according to a person familiar with the process. (RNC officials have concluded in recent months that the issue has faded some in the minds of voters.)
The RNC was until recently barred from bringing its substantial resources to bear on field operations at polling sites because of a decades-old court order. Now, the party apparatus is mobilizing volunteers to scrutinize voting locations for suspected fraud.
“It’s super, super critical that if issues are identified, they’re identified real time,” Melissa Conway, the RNC’s election integrity state director in Texas, said in a virtual meeting last year, so that Republicans can “have a legal footing in addressing the election and if need be, doing any overturning of the election.”
The new “election integrity” operation, which grew from former president Donald Trump’s complaints about botched legal challenges to the 2020 election and his persistent false claims of mass voting fraud, is already bringing in a significant stream of recruits to swing state voting sites.
The RNC has so far signed up more than 14,000 poll workers and 10,000 poll watchers nationwide, and political director Elliott Echols said the party plans to have more than 5,000 in each state for the November midterms. Republican officials said the project, involving dozens of dedicated staffers, is an effort to level the playing field with Democrats at polling sites.
More than 100 GOP primary winners back Trump’s false fraud claims
“There were there were a lot of problems in 2020, there absolutely were, regardless of what people say,” RNC senior adviser Justin Riemer said. “You don’t have to think the election was stolen to think there were a lot of problems and want to be involved in the process.”
Historically, many poll workers have been retirees who come back election after election, and both parties at the local level have traditionally worked with election officials to staff their precincts.
What’s different is the messaging, both to recruits and to party backers, about the reasons for the plan. While Democrats have set up legal hotlines and mobilized volunteers by stressing a need to help those denied a chance to vote, the Republican operation is centered on challenging ballots, spotting potential fraud — and for poll watchers, reporting those concerns directly to party attorneys on Election Day, according to the RNC.
That worries advocates and some election officials, who say the intense focus on fraud could cause problems at voting sites.
“People shouldn’t have a vested interest one way or another when doing the work of an election inspector,” said Claire Woodall-Vogg, the nonpartisan executive director of Milwaukee’s Election Commission, which received a record number of poll worker appointments from both parties this cycle. “The concern is if they understand that when they’re on the job they should check their politics at the door.”
The RNC’s program is the latest operation on the right since 2020 to focus on the smallest building blocks of American elections: polling precincts where people vote. Stephen K. Bannon, the former Trump strategist who now hosts a popular podcast, has since last year encouraged Trump supporters to fill local party posts as a gateway to monitoring elections. Cleta Mitchell, one of the lawyers involved in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 results, has hosted workshops in swing states attended by RNC and local party officials to discuss mobilizing poll workers and poll watchers.
“We are arming the army of patriots, that’s our goal,” Mitchell recently said on Bannon’s show.
The prospect of election deniers staffing polling precincts raises new concerns for administrators, civil rights groups and Democrats who say that Republicans are positioning themselves to sabotage the casting and counting of ballots in ways they could not in 2020. Some election officials say they’re already seeing poll worker trainees with clear agendas driven by Trump’s claims.
In Brookfield, Wis., a Republican-leaning city outside Milwaukee, City Clerk Michelle Luedtke said one recent trainee asked about Dominion voting machines, a target of false claims of rigged votes by Trump allies; another wanted to know how to check if voters were lying about where they lived. Luedtke said she asked the trainees, who were not party appointees, to meet with her after the session to address their concerns. Neither did, and they did not show up to work the polls.
“I make it clear during training that electioneering in any form will not be tolerated from any poll worker,” Luedtke said. For workers appointed by a party, she can ask the party to address the behavior and submit someone else. “That part gets a little hairy,” she said.
The concern about disruptions inside precincts hasn’t materialized so far in this year’s primaries, since the parties aren’t competing head to head. The RNC is using primaries as a dry run, testing its new operations ahead of the November midterms, and officials say they have seen few issues — and little fraud.
Riemer said overzealous poll watchers would be dismissed, and poll workers are the responsibility of local elections officials.
“You are not seeing examples of the voter fraud police running around stopping people from voting,” Riemer said. “It is specifically stated in the training that they are to be courteous, they are supposed to work cooperatively with the officials and not be in there like a bull in a china shop.”
The RNC’s state-based staffers are holding “election integrity training” events that encourage activists to become poll workers and poll watchers. The RNC says it’s not actually training poll workers at these sessions, because those positions typically require training by local election administrators. Poll watchers, by contrast, are usually trained by local parties. The RNC is also providing reporting software to take reports from poll watchers and connect them with party lawyers ready to sue.
Democrats say that’s a clear contrast to its volunteer recruitment operations.
“Republicans are recruiting and training partisan election deniers as poll workers and watchers, and laying the groundwork to cancel votes in elections they don’t win,” Ammar Moussa, a DNC spokesman, said in a statement. “Meanwhile, the DNC is educating voters on how to become a poll worker and protecting the right to vote. The difference between the two parties’ priorities could not be more stark.”
The RNC is also already using information gathered from its recruits to put additional pressure on election administrators.
The RNC’s state election integrity director in Wisconsin, Ryan Retza, emailed Woodall-Vogg in March to ask about reports from Republican poll workers and watchers saying her staff was accepting multiple ballots from people without checking their IDs. Woodall-Vogg replied that there was no requirement or recommendation to check IDs so she has instructed staff not to, since it might be considered an unlawful imposition. The next day, Woodall-Vogg received a formal letter from a lawyer representing the RNC and the Wisconsin Republican Party citing “firsthand knowledge from observers and inspectors,” using the state’s term for poll watchers and workers. An RNC spokeswoman said the information came from a Republican poll watcher who talked to several poll workers. The lawyer’s letter asked the clerk to instruct her staff to check IDs. She did not respond.
“For too long the power has been with the local election administrators,” Josh Findlay, the RNC’s national director of election integrity, said in a virtual meeting from July 2021. “Hopefully we don’t have to wait until you know the vote has already been cast or whatever it is to sue after the election is already over to try to fix things. We want to be able to catch things in real time.”
The genesis of the RNC’s program came after the 2020 election, as Trump railed for months — without evidence — of mass vote fraud, and as a series of lawsuits led by Rudy Giuliani and based on outlandish claims suggesting voting machines had been manipulated by foreign agents, flopped in court.
Trump repeatedly pressed RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on what she was doing to ensure he could more successfully challenge a 2024 loss.
“We can’t let them steal this one,” he said, according to one person with direct knowledge of his comments, which stem from his baseless claim that mass fraud cost him the 2020 election.
As the RNC came under pressure from Trump, donors, campaign lawyers and its own members to take action on election fraud, it tapped Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway to survey Republican voters on how many believed the election was stolen. It found about 70 percent who said they did, according to a person familiar with the process. (RNC officials have concluded in recent months that the issue has faded some in the minds of voters.)
