Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) and wife of Donald Trump's son Eric, has said that, after her father-in-law's inauguration, the Republican-controlled government should look into changing the U.S. election process.
Talking to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday after her father-in-law's historic victory about how to make the election process more secure and transparent, Lara Trump said that with Donald Trump in office, a GOP majority in the Senate and potentially in the House as well, the Republican Party finally has a chance to address the issues "99 percent plus of Americans agree on." These include, according to Lara Trump and Hannity, proof of citizenship and voter IDs.
"We don't have a perfect system right now," she told Hannity. "We have to get through this system, we have to play the hand that we were dealt. You have election season now instead of election day, and a lot of nuance around the country that makes it very confusing and really concerning for a lot of people."
"Maybe now it's the time, once Donald Trump is inaugurated, we go forward and maybe we have something that passes so that we can have a blanket federal election process that every state abides by and we feel very good about it all across the country," she suggested.
While the details of this potential change to the U.S. electoral process are thin, the suggestion of the RNC co-chair seems to confirm many experts' fears that Donald Trump's return to the White House might significantly transform American democracy. A "blanket federal election process" is likely referring to a desire to standardize procedures at the national level instead of letting every state choose its own process; this might include the homogenization of the deadlines for mail-in ballots, absentee ballots, and when votes are counted across the country.
Newsweek contacted the RNC and Trump's 2024 campaign for comment by email on Thursday early morning, outside of standard working hours.
Lara Trump, who was standing next to her father-in-law when he delivered his early victory speech on Tuesday night in Florida, was one of the main figures within the Republican Party casting doubts over the fairness and legitimacy of the election process ahead of Election Day.
The RNC filed more than 100 lawsuits challenging various aspects of vote-casting across the country, as reported by the Associated Press.
This was to facilitate legal challenges in a more effective way in the event of Donald Trump losing a close election.
While there has been no evidence found of widespread voting irregularities in the 2020 election, Donald Trump and his close allies are yet to abandon their false claims of massive fraud in the last election. Back in April, CNN reported that the RNC was sending out a scripted call to voters' phones on behalf of Lara Trump claiming Democrats committed "massive fraud" in the election.
The call said "the chaos and questions of the 2020 election" should not be allowed "to ever happen again."
Donald Trump will officially take office on January 20, 2025, returning to the White House after four years out of power. He's only the second president in U.S. history to serve two non-consecutive terms. In her concession speech, Vice President Kamala Harris encouraged a peaceful transfer of power in the coming weeks.
Donald Trump is expected to have the backing of a Republican-controlled Senate, while it's not yet clear which party will control the House with dozens of races still to be called.
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