Former President Donald Trump is making a big bet on mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania — launching and pushing a site to help rural voters request them — just four years after claiming vote-by-mail was riddled with fraud and cost him the election.
On Tuesday, the campaign announced the launch of SwampTheVoteUSA.com, which it bills as “the first non-government website giving voters full access to Pennsylvania’s election toolkit.”
Through its connection with the Pennsylvania Department of State, Trump’s campaign says the site ensures voters can directly request a mail-in ballot without being redirected elsewhere on the Internet.
Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley touts the site as a way to fast-track mail-in ballots.
As to the campaign’s change of heart on the method, Whatley told The Post that Trump has “consistently” promoted voting by mail as an option akin to traditional election booths and absentee ballots.
“Our new Swamp The Vote website in Pennsylvania will make it faster, easier, and more secure than ever for patriots in the Keystone State to deliver their mail ballots for President Trump,” Whatley said.
“This is a crucial, cutting-edge development in our sophisticated ground game, which will help deliver President Trump back to the White House and save America,” the chairman added.
During a visit to Bucks County in June, Whatley and his RNC Co-Chair Lara Trump summarized their party’s strategy of “protecting the vote” while promoting mail-in ballots as a legitimate way for Republicans to cut down on the Democrats’ expected early voting advantage.
After losing Pennsylvania to Joe Biden, Trump attempted to overturn the result by objecting to the legitimacy of ballots counted after Election Day in Philadelphia and neighboring blue counties.
Despite accepting mail-in votes in mid-September — earlier than any other state — Pennsylvania law does not allow early ballots to be counted until the morning of Election Day, leaving many votes from the state’s most populated, heavily Democratic areas as the last to be counted.
In November 2020, Trump called into a Pennsylvania Senate hearing after the state certified its election results to contest the results.
“We have to turn the election over, because there’s no doubt we have all the evidence, we have all the affidavits, we have everything,” Trump told state senators at the time.
Legal challenges to the election results in Pennsylvania and other swing states that Trump lost were rejected for lack of conclusive evidence.
