Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump defended the recent legal filings by the party and the Donald Trump campaign in electoral battleground states speaking with Fox News on Sunday. In reference to Friday’s filing in states including Nevada, Lara Trump explained to Maria Bartiromo, “You cannot have ballots counted, Maria, after elections are over. And right now, that is one of the many lawsuits we have out across this country to ensure that just that happens, that we have a free, fair, and transparent election.”
“So in Nevada, as you pointed out, we are saying we want on Election Day, that to be the last day that mail-in ballots can be counted,” she continued.
The campaign’s goal is to invalidate mail-in ballots that aren’t counted by Election Day. This is the first lawsuit filed by the campaign this year, but the RNC has filed additional suits in other states across the country.
In 2021, Nevada’s Democrats passed a law that allows mail-in ballots to be tallied up to four days after the election — as long as the ballots were postmarked by the end of the day on Election Day.
In a statement, RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said, “Nevada’s ballot receipt deadline clearly violates federal law and undermines election integrity in the state. Ballots received days after Election Day should not be counted.”
Trump added that the campaign has enjoyed recent success in Pennsylvania. “A couple weeks ago, we won a big lawsuit in the state of Pennsylvania. They wanted to take off dates from mail-in ballots, of course, the Democrats in an effort to make it easier to cheat. We pushed back on that. We won.”
In the court’s opinion, Pennsylvania’s Judge Thomas Ambro wrote, “The Pennsylvania General Assembly has decided that mail-in voters must date the declaration on the return envelope of their ballot to make their vote effective. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania unanimously held this ballot-casting rule is mandatory; thus, failure to comply renders a ballot invalid under Pennsylvania law.”
The state’s branch of the ACLU had fought against that ruling. Ari Savitzky, a lawyer with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said in a statement, “We strongly disagree with the panel majority’s conclusion that voters may be disenfranchised for a minor paperwork error like forgetting to write an irrelevant date on the return envelope of their mail ballot. We are considering all of our options at this time.”
The RNC referred to the ruling as a “crucial victory.”
Trump also added that the campaign is hoping to host volunteer attorneys at every polling location, “because we want them in every single major polling location across this country to ensure that we are not waiting for weeks after Election Day.”
Watch the interview with Lara Trump in the video above.
