by RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel
A couple of months ago, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced that it would hold its 2025 All-Star Game in Atlanta, Georgia. This news is more than just a sports scheduling update: it represents the unraveling of Democrat conspiracy theories about election integrity in Georgia and across the country.
In 2021, a host of leading Democrats – from Stacey Abrams, to Raphael Warnock, to Joe Biden – spread rampant misinformation about election integrity in Georgia, aided by a sympathetic mainstream media. The MLB was bullied into moving its game out of Atlanta, costing local businesses $100 million in projected revenue. They were lying about Georgia’s Senate Bill 202, which strengthens voter ID protections, expands early voting hours, and protects bipartisan poll watching, among other common sense functions. Polling shows that a strong majority of Americans support the measures contained in Senate Bill 202. However, Democrats saw an opportunity to unfairly demonize their political opponents and claimed, with no evidence whatsoever, that the law was aimed at suppressing minority voters.
So what changed? Why is the MLB coming back to Atlanta, even though Senate Bill 202 is still on the books? The answer is simple: Democrats lied. When Senate Bill 202 was put to the test during the 2022 midterms, elections ran smoothly and turnout skyrocketed, shattering records. Minority turnout swelled. The conspiracy theory fell apart, the media quickly stopped talking about the law, and the MLB quietly planned a return to the Peach State.
The RNC was in the Georgia fight from day one. We bought a full-page ad in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution clearing the air about Senate Bill 202 and put ads on local TV and radio to spread the truth. Crucially, we also jumped into the courtroom. We immediately intervened in 8 lawsuits, including one filed by Biden’s Department of Justice, and have been fighting to protect Georgia’s law from left-wing and DOJ overreach ever since. Just a few weeks ago, we filed for summary judgment in 6 of those consolidated cases. This fight is one of our top priorities.
Our efforts to ensure fair and honest elections and defend election integrity has led to the creation of a full-time, permanent election integrity department at the RNC. In addition to our Georgia court battles, we have been involved in 72 cases of election integrity litigation in 20 states around the country this cycle. In just the last two months, the RNC has intervened against dark-money Democrats in Montana and North Carolina. We’ve filed amicus briefs to successfully defend Donald Trump’s right to be on the presidential ballot in 2024 in Minnesota, Michigan, and in the Supreme Court for Colorado. We led a coalition of 20 plaintiffs, including the NRSC, NRCC, Elise Stefanik, and several other members of Congress to protect mail voting safeguards in New York. We’ve successfully challenged Democrat Secretaries of State in the key states of Arizona and Nevada to ensure they’re not putting a finger on the scale for their party. We have successfully used litigation to protect the integrity of absentee voting in Wisconsin.
The RNC has secured key court victories to protect the rights of poll watchers in North Carolina and Michigan, won a Supreme Court case to uphold a ban on ballot harvesting in Arizona, and stopped New York City from letting 900,000 non citizens vote in NYC elections – just one of the 12 current cases we are involved in to make sure only American citizens vote in American elections. In the field, we already have 12 election integrity state directors hired and on the ground in Arizona, California, Florida, Ohio, Georgia, Michigan, Montana, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Those state directors and their teams, in cooperation with local stakeholders, state and county parties, and grassroots leaders, will train tens of thousands of poll watchers and poll workers who will be activated for the 2024 elections to ensure transparency. Meanwhile, we’re contracting with dozens of law firms around the country to ensure we have lawyers at the polls and in the room when it counts most.
Thousands of volunteers. Lawyers on the ground from coast to coast. Lawsuit after lawsuit and court victory after court victory in the states that will decide the House, Senate, and White House. The RNC’s election integrity program is truly unprecedented. In 2021, we dove into the Georgia fight because we knew it represented a fundamental choice on this issue: Americans can either have common-sense policies to protect elections, or Democrats spewing conspiracy theories. We’re committed to cutting through the left-wing mirage to secure fair and honest elections. We’re glad the MLB has seen the light and agreed with us.
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Ronna McDaniel is the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee.
Photo “People Voting” by Joe Shlabotnik. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
