Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) and former President Trump's daughter-in-law, vowed Friday to prosecute anyone who cheats in an election.
"This year is the year we do it," Lara Trump said at Turning Point USA’s convention in Detroit, Michigan. "We are also sending a loud and clear message out there to anyone who thinks about cheating in an election, we will find you, we will track you down and we will prosecute you to the full extent of the law."
The RNC on Friday launched a swing state initiative to mobilize thousands of polling place monitors, poll workers and attorneys to serve as "election integrity" watchdogs in November.
Lara Trump said the goal is to recruit more than 100,000 poll watchers and 500 lawyers to deploy at election sites across the country.
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For decades, the RNC was limited in its ability to coordinate poll watching and other election integrity activities by a federal court consent decree established to stop Republican-backed voter intimidation efforts. The decree was lifted in 2018.
"We have a unique opportunity right now that we have not had in 40 years as a party. For 40 years, there was a consent decree placed on the RNC that did not allow us to train people to work as poll workers," Lara Trump said at the Turning Point USA event. "Who was training all the people for the last 40 years? Not the RNC. Think about how many people the DNC got to train."
"So now we have this amazing opportunity so we can train you to work in a polling location. We can train you to work in a tabulation center when the mail-in ballots come in. We also want attorneys to work in every major polling location so we are not reactive, we are proactive," she said.
The RNC has said its new effort will focus on stopping potential "Democrat attempts to circumvent the rules." The party will deploy monitors to observe every step of the election process, create hotlines for poll watchers to report perceived problems and escalate those issues by taking legal action.
The RNC's kickoff event took place at the headquarters of the Oakland County GOP, one of Michigan’s most influential local parties. Oakland County is an affluent Detroit suburb that for decades was one of Michigan’s premier bellwether counties. RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said Friday that the committee will place election integrity directors in 15 states, including the most hotly contested battlegrounds, and work with state parties to set up similar programs in the other states.
"What we need to ensure is integrity in our electoral process," Lara Trump said during the kickoff event in Bloomfield Hills, in a suburban county that is crucial for winning Michigan. "We can never go back and repeat 2020, but we can learn the lessons from 2020." She said most of the RNC is currently focused on the committee's election integrity program.
Both parties have a long history of organizing supporters to serve as poll monitors, and the Democratic National Committee said it plans its own volunteer recruitment effort.
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The launch of the RNC initiative comes as the GOP faces a significant disadvantage compared to Democrats in traditional political infrastructure on the ground in key states, such as campaign offices, community centers and canvassers, according to the Associated Press. President Biden’s campaign and his allies on the Democratic National Committee have opened hundreds of campaign offices nationwide, while Republican officials in many cases are still waiting for the Trump campaign and the RNC to engage.
DNC spokesperson Alex Floyd said the DNC, "alongside our partners at the state and local level, won’t let MAGA Republicans get away with these baseless attacks on our democracy, and we will continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that all Americans can make their voice heard at the ballot box."
RNC leadership, which former President Trump handpicked in a major overhaul of the committee earlier this year, has followed his lead in forecasting the potential for foul play in this year’s election. Lara Trump qualified her answer on CNN earlier this month when asked if she would accept the election's results.
"I can tell you, yes, we will accept the results of this election if we feel that it is free, fair and transparent," she said. "And we are working overtime to ensure that indeed that happens."
Asked Friday whether the committee planned to challenge the election certification process in any swing states Trump might narrowly lose, Whatley said, "We’re not going to cross any of those bridges right now."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
