Trump Camp is Raising Money for a GOP Ballot Harvesting Operation

Kerry Picket reporting for Washington Times 

The Trump campaign is taking on Democrats’ ballot-harvesting in key battleground states where billionaire liberal activist George Soros’ groups are spending tens of millions targeting to energize President Biden’s base.

“We recently alerted you that a Soros-linked Super PAC has begun targeting 6 battleground states with a $75 MILLION spending blitz to buy Crooked Joe the White House,” the campaign said in a fundraising email Thursday. “But there’s something important we want to add … some of those states have legalized BALLOT HARVESTING.”

The campaign highlighted the Soros-linked effort in battleground states Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“At the beginning of the year, President Trump made a major announcement that our campaign would ballot harvest in the states where it’s legal to counter the Left’s schemes,” the email said before asking for contributions to support the Trump campaign’s Ballot Harvesting Fund.

Ballot harvesting is when someone besides a voter turns in a voter’s ballot, usually a mail-in ballot. Mail ballots can be absentee ballots and ballots cast in vote-by-mail states.

Republicans have long derided the practice and campaigned on eventually eliminating it in states where it is legal.

The GOP more recently have promised their donors they will become as savvy at ballot harvesting as the Democrats.

In mid-April, Mr. Trump, who previously took issue with early voting and vote-by-mail methods, told wealthy GOP donors that it was important for Republicans to lean into these strategies.

He said the GOP needs “every vote we can get, whether it’s early or late,” according to a Washington Post report.

“Our goal will be one-day voting with only paper ballots. But until that day comes, the Republican Party and the RNC must compete using every lawful means to win,” Mr. Trump said. “That means swamping the left with mail-in votes, early votes and Election Day votes. Where we can’t get rid of drop boxes, we need them in every church and veteran center. And until we can eliminate ballot harvesting, we must become masters at ballot harvesting.”