The Republican National Committee (RNC) is ramping up Republican presence at the polls this year by enlisting thousands of poll workers ahead of the midterms, an operation it legally could not run for nearly 40 years prior to 2018.
The committee is using this week specifically — the week of “Poll Worker Recruitment Day,” which officially took place Tuesday — to capitalize on its millions of Republican contacts by pushing out directives for people to become involved at the polls as both watchers and official workers.
“If elections are the cornerstone of democracy, then transparent and secure elections are one of the most important offerings that the RNC can have,” RNC spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez told Breitbart News. “And it happens to be the first cycle that we can get involved and stand up this operation the way that RNC chairwoman [Ronna] McDaniel has envisioned.”
The RNC is the primary campaign arm of the Republican Party and poured more than $800 million into electing Republican candidates in the last election cycle.
The committee however, unlike the Democratic National Committee (DNC), was prohibited under a 1982 consent decree from engaging in certain aspects of the election process — such as recruiting its own people to monitor polls on Election Day — up through December 2017, when the decree expired.