Lara Trump says the Republican National Committee can “physically handle” ballots

Lara Trump says the Republican National Committee has “people who can physically handle the ballots” in polling places, prompting concerns on election integrity with her comments made in a recent Newsmax appearance.

The RNC co-chair and Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law described to Newsmax host Eric Bolling an RNC maneuver to deploy 100,000 volunteers and attorneys to polling places, adding that the lifting of a moratorium stemming from past incidents of voter intimidation gave the RNC new abilities in the election.

Lara Trump inaccurately identified the moratorium as ending last year upon a judge’s death, despite the fact that it ended in 2018. Former RNC chairman Michael Steele reminded Trump of the moratorium’s history on X, saying that it was put in place “because the RNC was caught cheating.”

As Democracy Docket founder and election lawyer Marc. E. Elias noted in response to the interview, “Poll observers are NEVER permitted to touch ballots.” The National Conference of State Legislators also says that monitors are “prohibited from interfering in the electoral process apart from reporting issues.”

Describing 2024 as “the most important election of our lifetimes,” Lara Trump echoed false claims about fraud in the 2020 election, and said she didn’t want to see a “repeat.” Her father-in-law has claimed that the election was stolen, and was recently named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Michigan plot to send illegitimate electors to the Electoral College.