After Trump called them ‘a scam,’ Pa. Republicans are now all in on mail ballots

Flanked by Republican candidates for judge with a week to go until Election Day, Pennsylvania GOP party chair Lawrence Tabas implored voters to cast their ballots ASAP.

“I’m here to say, ‘bank your vote,’” Tabas said at a get-out-the-vote event Monday at Capone’s Restaurant in Norristown. “That’s the key to our victory. Go to the county courthouse, apply, fill it out, turn it in and get your ballot and vote right then and there.”

The event showed that it’s not 2020 anymore. Gone are the days of Republicans cautioning voters away from using the postal service to cast their ballots. Pennsylvania Republicans, led by national party leaders, are trying a different course of action — encouraging vote by mail in next week’s critical state Supreme Court race, with an eye toward the benefit it could bring in next year’s presidential race.

Democrats have made messaging about how to properly vote by mail part of outreach for years, as have civics and voting rights groups (remember the naked ballot campaign in Pennsylvania in 2020?). Now Republicans, coming off a disappointing 2022, think boosting mail voting could increase turnout and — perhaps more important — make it easier for the party and campaigns to target voters in an expensive swing state.

The party could face skepticism from its own voters, and Republicans are still lagging far behind Democrats in Pennsylvania mail ballot requests despite the push for it this year. Experts don’t agree on whether mail voting increases turnout, but the GOP still hopes that changing voters’ habits could help in 2024.

“This is a nationwide initiative but I honestly can’t think of a state where this is more important than in Pennsylvania,” RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, said at the campaign’s launch earlier this month. “We all know there’s not just an Election Day there’s an Election Season, and we need to bank our vote in 2024 if we’re gonna win.”

In a campaign dubbed “bank your vote,” the state GOP is encouraging early voting by mail. Republican lawmakers and party leaders have recorded videos posted on social media for the campaign, including former President Donald Trump — who in the past has falsely called mail voting “a whole big scam” — and GOP Senate candidate Dave McCormick.

The push includes state-specific resources on how to apply for and cast a mail ballot. The information is available on a GOP branded website, which Tabas said should encourage voters who are wary of the process given repeated attacks on mail ballots despite no meaningful evidence of their misuse.

“This is a party where we’ve not been in favor of them in the past but we have adapted. We’re pushing it hard,” Tabas said. “It’s going to be the key to victory.”

In January, the party launched a postmortem following its 2022 losses. The $100,000 review conducted by an outside firm involved convening focus groups and interviewing voters across the state. Asked over the summer about the findings of that postmortem, Tabas pointed to mail ballots as a primary takeaway.

Reversing entrenched voter behavior isn’t easy. And there’s been little shift in the partisan divide over voting by mail in Pennsylvania.

Since the 2020 general election, Republicans have consistently comprised just about 21% of mail ballot requests and returns, according to state election data. Democrats in the last three elections have hovered about 70% of ballots requested and returned.

While the use of mail ballots peaked in 2020, during a presidential election amid a global pandemic, there are signs that Democrats are continuing to use them.

The number of ballots requested and returned by Democrats this year has already surpassed the party’s numbers in the 2021 general election. Both years featured a Supreme Court race at the top of the ballot.

While Republicans have said they see mail voting as advantageous, there’s varying data whether it improves turnout.

Studies of states with universal vote by mail, where every voter automatically gets a ballot by mail, have seen an increase in turnout, though most research has shown no benefit to one party over the other. In states such as Pennsylvania, where anyone is eligible to vote by mail but voters must request ballots, the connection to turnout has been less clear. Generally, experts had agreed that most people who vote by mail would have voted in person if mail voting weren’t an option.

But a recent study co-authored by University of Florida political science professor Michael McDonald looked across all states with varied voting laws and found a correlation between mail ballot usage and turnout. McDonald found that states with greater usage of mail voting experience higher overall voter turnout.

McDonald, who has studied national and state-based voter behavior for decades, said he thinks Republicans are wise to try to expand the usage of mail voting.

“Who are those high propensity voters? They’re older, white, wealthier,” McDonald said. “They look more like Republicans. So there’s an argument to be made here that mail balloting benefits Republicans, especially in local elections where turnout is low.”

Local and off-year elections are typically where you’d see the biggest impact of mail voting, said Marc Meredith, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Even higher propensity voters might skip out if they don’t know who is on the ballot or a conflict comes up on Election Day. If they’d registered to receive mail ballots, though, the information is at their fingertips.

“Getting a ballot mailed to you is an inherent reminder the election is happening,” Meredith said.

Campaigns and parties see a clear financial and political benefit, regardless of whether more mail ballots mean more votes.

When voters vote before Election Day, campaigns can get that data and remove those voters from contact lists, allowing campaigns to allocate more election dollars for turning out voters less likely to vote. That can be especially helpful in lower information elections like judicial races — or row office races.

“I know there are lot of Republicans who think voting in person actually helps Republican candidates but pre-election day voting actually saves campaigns precious dollars,” said state treasurer Stacy Garrity, another spokesperson for the campaign. “The longer it takes a voter to cast their vote, the more it costs Republican candidates.”

Tuesday was the deadline to apply for a mail ballot for this year’s general election. Mail ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 7, to the local county election board.

Staff writer Aseem Shukla contributed to this article.