To compete with Democrats’ early and mail-in voting strategy, Republicans launched “Pennsylvania Bank Your Vote” on Tuesday, which aims to increase Republican voting ahead of Election Day.
“This is a nationwide initiative, but I honestly can’t think of a state where this is more important than Pennsylvania, where we are trying to leverage the full infrastructure of the Republican Party to educate and activate our voters,” RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel told reporters on Tuesday.
The Pennsylvania-specific initiative is an offshoot of the RNC’s nationwide “Bank Your Vote” campaign, which encourages Republicans to leverage early voting laws to compete with Democrats’ election machine. While Democrats have made unsupervised, mail-in balloting a key electoral strategy, Republicans, by contrast, have historically preferred in-person voting on Election Day.
On its website, the Pennsylvania Bank Your Vote campaign provides guidelines for how commonwealth voters can cast their ballots ahead of Election Day. It also includes links to state government websites that offer further information on how voters can request an absentee ballot or where they can vote early in person.
According to Pennsylvania GOP Chair Lawrence Tabas, this new initiative — which involves coordination between the RNC and state and county parties — will be critically important in determining the outcome of the commonwealth’s remaining 2023 elections. As The Federalist has reported, the state’s Nov. 7 election includes races for a Pennsylvania Supreme Court seat, a Commonwealth Court seat, and two Superior Court seats.
“Bank Your Vote and our mail-in ballot program in Pennsylvania will be a crucial part of electing our candidate[s] in 2023,” Tabas said. “If you’re sitting on the sidelines, now is the time to get involved.”
In conjunction with its Bank Your Vote initiative, the RNC will continue its poll observer program from the 2022 midterms. During those elections, Republicans filled more than 5,000 poll watcher shifts, and more than 600 election jobs and inspector shifts in Pennsylvania, according to McDaniel.
Tuesday’s press conference was also attended by Dave McCormick, a GOP candidate for Pennsylvania’s 2024 U.S. Senate race, and Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity.
