The Republican National Committee’s new co-chair Lara Trump appeared to misunderstand how elections work on Fox News Sunday while defending a lawsuit filed in the state of Nevada last week by the RNC and the Trump campaign.
On Friday, the Republican National Committee, Trump Campaign, and Nevada Republican Party announced the suit against the Nevada Secretary of State for allowing mail-in ballots to be counted up to four days after the election. The four-day law was passed by Democrats in 2021, but the ballots must be postmarked by end of Election Day to be considered valid.
The campaign’s goal is to invalidate mail-in ballots that aren’t counted by Election Day. It is the first lawsuit filed by the Trump campaign this year, but the RNC has filed additional suits in other states across the country, including in Mississippi and North Dakota. According to the Associated Press, 19 states allow mail-in ballot votes to be received and counted after the election.
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An RNC press release announcing the Nevada suit described the move as a “critical step in our unprecedented election integrity operation to fight for voter confidence and fair elections across the country.”
RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement: “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.”
Nevada’s Democratic secretary of state, Francisco Aguilar, told the Associated Press, “I hope the RNC is putting as much time and energy into educating voters on how to participate in elections as they put into suing the state of Nevada.”
On Sunday, Lara, who is married to the former president’s second eldest son, Eric Trump, defiantly echoed her party’s message. However it appears she may have missed a fundamental point about the way elections work—that it’s the counting of votes, not a day on the calendar, that signals when an election is finished.
Speaking with Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, she claimed: “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.
Trump copped backlash for the comments on social media, including from former U.S. tennis star Andy Roddick: “I have a super weird counter .......... An election can't be over until the votes are counted. So ....,” he wrote on X, echoing similar comments from critics.
“This would disenfranchise overseas military votes,” Roddick added.
Trump then bragged about a win in the courts in Pennsylvania; however the case was clarifying whether mail-in ballots should be counted after Election Day if not properly postmarked. A federal appeals court panel last month overturned a November lower court decision that claimed mail-in ballots could be tallied up to three days after Election Day if received but not properly postmarked.
“If this ruling stands, thousands of Pennsylvania voters could lose their vote over a meaningless paperwork error,” Mike Lee, executive director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said in a press release. “The ballots in question in this case come from voters who are eligible and who met the submission deadline. In passing the Civil Rights Act, Congress put a guardrail in place to be sure that states don’t erect unnecessary barriers that disenfranchise voters. It’s unfortunate that the court failed to recognize that principle. Voters lose as a result of this ruling.”
Trump still claimed the win: “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, and that set precedent for the entire country.”
