2 weeks Ago By SEABORN LARSON [email protected]
GREAT FALLS — Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley stepped up to a podium on Friday with a promise and a plan for the last 66 days of the election. "Two things and two things only," he told 50-some Great Falls residents who attended the event at the Great Falls International Airport event center. "We are going to get out the vote and we are going to protect the ballot.
" The RNC's Protect the Vote tour has touched down in battleground states around the country in recent days. While billed as a training for volunteers to monitor the election process, the energy and substance of speeches in the first half of the event were solidly spent on motivating residents to turn out for Republicans this November. Whatley, as U.
S. House Speaker Mike Johnson had told a small Billings crowd earlier this month, cast Montana as a battleground state, as well. Montana has only four electoral votes and is in most cases a solidly Republican state.
Still, Whatley reminded people how slim the partisan majorities are in Congress, and that Montana could play a role in Republicans' capturing both chambers by sending an entirely Republican delegation to Washington, D.C. These events serve as a stage to energize the base, but also to restore confidence in those who may question if their vote will be accurately counted.
However, those fears have been sourced in baseless claims of election fraud by former president Donald Trump's and his supporters before and after the 2020 election. "We want every Republican to understand your vote is going to be protected," he told the crowd. "We are going to protect the sanctity of the ballot here in Montana and every other battleground state.
And it is absolutely critical for Republicans to understand it because if we have 1% say, 'You know what, my vote's not going to count, they're going to cheat, they're going to steal, I'm staying home,' I guarantee you we will lose." In an interview after the event, Whatley contended those fears around election fraud were also stoked in 2020 by changing rules around elections. Those rules were put in place across the country during the pandemic.
Montana had its own shake-up where a judge had permitted ballots to be counted after Election Day, although the Montana Supreme Court ultimately overturned that decision. "In 2020 we saw a number of states, as a result of COVID, changed their rules even after voting had already started," Whatley said. The RNC, he added, is focused this year on voter ID laws, citizenship requirements and keeping voter rolls current.
"These are basic protections that 70, 75, 80% of all Americans support," he said. "So, you know, this is not a conspiracy theory, it's not election denialism. It's about putting basic protections in place so that we have the comfort that the vote is going to count and that is going work.
" Cascade County may harbor more skepticism about the election process than most Montana counties. Late last year, the GOP county commission from the Republican clerk and recorder who had expressed doubts about the 2020 election and had caused issues in school board elections since she took office. However, Sandra Merchant's removal never got a mention during the portion of Friday's event that was open to the public.
Whatley said the RNC is working with local election administrators, through the state Republican Party and local GOP central committees. After a round of Republican speakers, which included Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen and eastern U.S.
House congressional candidate Troy Downing, press was ushered out of the room for the voter integrity training. Whatley said the training was closed to the press because volunteers were uncomfortable with being on camera. The gist of the training, he said, is to let them know where to sign up as poll watchers or election judges, and what to look out for on election night.
The national and Montana GOP, following Trump's loss, has since embraced voting strategies that were held out as suspicious in 2020, including mail-in voting and ballot collection. Outside the airport, Kevin Crawford was headed home with candidate signs in hand after picking them up from the event. He didn't need to stick around for the training, having completed it well before Friday.
Kevin and his wife, Linda Crawford, consider themselves skeptics of the 2020 election. Linda Crawford said it was outright stolen. Asked if the GOP's pivot toward these voting methods gave them a sense of whiplash, Kevin Crawford said no.
"It's something we should have been doing all along," he said. "But still, you know, I do think that the last election, there was a lot of things that were — I think it's voter integrity — it was just pushed to the side." But if the RNC is successful in getting voters like them into the process to eyeball ballot counting and clear elections offices of any chicanery, will the Crawfords still feel like they're vote was properly counted? "If every state does what we're doing, then I have no problem if she wins," Kevin said.
Linda was more concerned about the country's response this fall, suspecting supporters of either party could turn violent if their candidate fails. "That's what I'm worried about.".
