Detroit —Four years later Detroit Convention Center was the center of conspiracy theories and unfounded allegations of voter fraud, thousands of Republicans returned to the building last weekend to prepare for The resumption of November between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. So-called election integrity efforts and debunked allegations of voter fraud were invoked repeatedly, this time to convince GOP voters to show up in force in November.
Charlie Kirk, the influential leader of the conservative grassroots organization Turning Point Action, took the stage to kick off his organization's “People's Convention” in downtown Detroit last Friday and called the venue where he spoke '”crime scene”. He recounted debunked claims that thousands of illegal mail-in and early ballots were secretly delivered and tabulated, resulting in a stolen victory for President Biden.
A Michigan judge ruled that allegations of massive voter fraud at what was then called the TCF Center were “false and not credible.”
Now, Kirk's group, Turning Point Action, along with the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee President Michael Whatley and Co-President Lara Trump – are trying to convince GOP voters to adopt those same voting options, including early in-person voting, absentee-by-mail voting, and drop-in ballots.
Kirk's group hopes to recruit an army of 1,000 organizers in battleground states to “chase the vote,” encouraging conservative voters to register and make plans to vote in November, but also to be confident that whatever your vote is, your vote will be counted accurately. Rebuilding that trust is easier said than done, he and Lara Trump, who is Donald Trump's daughter-in-law, admit.
“There's a lot of hesitancy and skepticism, but it's waning with some sort of people in the conservative movement, because they're saying, 'Look, postal voting isn't safe,' and I share some of those concerns,” Kirk said. Republican skepticism.
He pointed out The loss of Kari Lake of the 2022 Arizona governor's race as a moment when he realized that Republicans needed to embrace “Election Month,” as he put it, not just Election Day.
“It caused a lot of introspection on our team. And I said, why don't we embrace, you know, this kind of methodology, we might not like it, but losing feels a lot worse,” Kirk said. “I think the movement looks at it the same way.”
“People are very smart; they have legitimate concerns,” he continued. “But we're left with a really binary choice: Do we keep doing what we're doing, which is trying to squeeze, you know, 70 to 80 million votes into a 12-hour period, right? Or we expand that. , especially with casualties[propensity] voters, which … our side absolutely needs, and we do what we can in a 30-35 day period.”
But if that message gets through to GOP voters after four years of being told that 2020 elections was manipulated and stolen from the Republicans remains to be seen. And the party still hasn't completely shelved its 2020 playbook.
As the Turning Point conference began in Detroit, Whatley and Lara Trump were 45 minutes north in Oakland County, Michigan, where they kicked off the RNC's “Protect the Vote” tour, renewing the emphasis of party in hiring poll workers, poll watchers, and election lawyers who go to battleground states in November where the outcome is historically close.
As Whatley addressed the crowd of several hundred at the Oakland County GOP headquarters in Bloomfield Hills, an attendee spoke up and said the 2020 election was not stolen. Other attendees immediately booed him and yelled at him with phrases like “it was totally stolen!”
“What I will say is to everyone in this room, including me and [Lara Trump] is absolutely, totally committed to making sure the 2024 election is fair, accurate, secure, and transparent,” Whatley responded, as the crowd continued to berate the man.
Lara Trump and Whatley say they plan to be patient as they try to convince Republican voters to trust the integrity of elections again.
“I think it takes time. It takes time to rebuild trust and we intend to do that,” Lara Trump told CBS News. Whatley is crafting a grassroots early voting program to ensure Republicans make a plan to get their vote counted.
“Are you going to vote on Election Day? Are you going to vote early? Are you going to vote by mail? Make sure you track and get your ballot in,” she said.
“The biggest fraud is when our people don't vote,” Kirk said, in response to the same question. “That's where I stand out. Everyone has a role to play. And the biggest fraud is when our people stay home.”
Early Saturday morning at “The People's Convention,” the Michigan Trump campaign and state GOP officials were pressed repeatedly by attendees about why they weren't doing more to challenge electronic voting machines, another hot topic. for election conspiracy theorists like Mike Lindell, who also spoke at the conference and shared these same concerns.
“We have to get rid of the crime involved, and that means getting rid of electronic voting machines,” Lindell told CBS News. Lindell has repeatedly accepted debunked and fraudulent theories about the 2020 and 2022 elections, but told CBS he was “glad” trump and the RNC has been telling voters that the GOP must win by such a large margin that it's “too big to handle.” It has been a regular refrain of the former president in recent months.
Macomb County, Mich. resident Ronald Singer, who attended Saturday's session, praised Trump for urging supporters to vote early.
“That's what he's doing is trying to convince them [to trust elections] because for many, many years, you know, your whole life, you've been taught that there's an election day and that the election is on election day.” Singer said. “Some funny things are happening now , where it seems to take not hours, but days or maybe more. But what it will take is a little time to turn people around.”
At a May Trump rally in Freeland, Mich., the Michigan GOP taped signs around the venue, including port-a-potties, and state party members pointed out attendees to be campaign volunteers when they came to the event
A volunteer who was trying to recruit other “protect the vote” volunteers said she was skeptical of this new push.
“I would never vote by mail,” Flint resident Teri Cawood said, adding that while Trump and his allies are promoting early and mail-in voting, she doesn't trust it. “Maybe a little, if he says so, but I don't know,” Cawood said.
But when Trump headlined the Turning Point rally last Saturday, his message ran counter to Republican efforts to encourage absentee voting. He warned the thousands in the audience to “watch your vote” because “they” – the Democrats – would “destroy” and “end” their votes in November.
“I told Charlie [Kirk] and I told Michael [Whatley], I said, 'Listen, we don't need votes. We got more votes than anyone else. We have to watch the vote. We have to watch the vote. We've got to stop the theft,” Trump told the crowd. “You know these mail-in ballots are traitors, they're traitors… These boxes are horrible, horrible, and we're going to change that, but we've got to win. the elections to change them”.
