"You know mail-in voting is largely corrupt," Donald Trump told a rally last month. But the Republican presidential candidate can't win without votes, and he's thought better of that stance. His team has joined with the Republican National Committee to launch a campaign encouraging supporters to cast their ballots by mail for the November election or otherwise participate in early voting, the Hill reports. "You need to make a plan, register, and vote any way possible," Trump says in a video kicking off the campaign.
The effort is called "Swamp the Vote," and Trump says he needs a huge turnout to defeat Democrats. "The way to win is to swamp them, if we swamp them with votes they can't cheat," he said in a statement. Plans call for providing potential voters with information on how to vote in various ways under their state's laws. States encouraged voting in ways other than standing in line at a polling place after the pandemic hit. Trump opposed that effort, saying, "I think a lot of people cheat with mail-in voting." A Washington Post analysis of data from three states at the time found no evidence of widespread fraud.
A Pew poll earlier this year found majority support for early voting and mail-in voting. Democrats supported mail-in options much more than Republicans did, per the Hill. The chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee told the Post that his party needs to get its voters to cast ballots earlier and that he's pleased by Trump's change. "President Trump wants to win," Sen. Steve Daines said. "And this is a winning strategy." (Trump sued Nevada over its vote-by-mail law.)
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