The Low-Propensity Voter: How Trump and the Detroit Campaign fought to Win the Voter’s Lottery. And yet, the Michigan Campaign is Back on Track
Brian Pannebecker, founder of Auto Workers for Trump, told the Michigan crowd that they need to beat the Democrats at their own game. Democrats are going to cheat, one thing I know is, you have to vote early.
As the crowd roared at Detroit’s Easter Market, Pannebecker laid out the foundational piece of the Trump campaign’s voter turnout operation in Michigan.
“They’re called low-propensity voters,” Pannebecker said, referring to the term for people who rarely, if ever, turn out to the polls. “That’s who we’re targeting.”
And yet, even as the disparity between Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump’s field strategy couldn’t be more drastic in Michigan, recent polling remains close—consistently either tied or within two points, on average, within the margin of error. The Trump campaign has forced the question of whether its lackadaisical-seeming approach is a poor man’s moneyball strategy that could actually work, either as an unconventional tactic or in spite of itself.
Instead of a traditional voter turnout operation led by the GOP nominee’s campaign and the Republican National Committee, the Trump campaign is leaning into some not-so-cutting-edge technology and a podcast blitz to target younger men who are either sporadic voters or don’t vote at all.
Republicans are depending on a pair of mobile apps which are difficult to find, since they aren’t on the Apple or Android app stores. The one used by Elon Musk’s America PAC is severely limited by the lack of a geo-tracking feature, forcing users to rely on “offline walkbooks” which don’t always upload, a key bug first reported by The Guardian. 10xVotes requires users to enter search queries for people they know rather than providing them with a list of contacts, which is promoted by Tucker Carlson and the Michigan GOP. (This reporter created an account and tried searching for family members in Michigan who would fall squarely under the category of low-propensity voters and came up with no results.)
“You gotta remember we were in the middle of the pandemic. The people didn’t want to cast a ballot at the polls on Election Day. Some of them were a little slower than others in their delivery. You had that experience at 3 o’clock, 4 o’clock in the morning.
The Detroit elections department’s operating officer says he could have supplied the answer. He supervised poll workers who had to wade through more than 170,000 absentee ballots — about two-thirds of all the votes cast in the city.
But as the vote-counting wore on, the situation deteriorated. People are at the convention center. It escalated when the hall reached full capacity and certain challengers were ordered to leave.
The City Clerk of Detroit, who oversees the elections, says that after the riots, those who game-planned for the next presidential contest went to great lengths to protect poll workers.
We got through 2020 when everything happened, including the threats and attacks on election workers. It was not expected. So now we know that may happen and we are ready if it should happen,” Winfrey said.
Organizing a Chaotic Vote Count in 2020: Here’s What Detroit Will Do Differently This Year (the Detroit Posteriori)
Officials moved the central polling location to the enclosed, cavernous Hall A, on the opposite end of the center from where votes were tallied in 2020.
There are no windows. And if you do not have credentials you cannot be inside in any area. The Detroit Police Department has a designated area where they can be if they decide to attend a protest.
We have 50 tables for processing. In 2020 we had 134 tables. That made for more people, challengers, and poll workers. There are 300 ballots that you have to process compared to 3000 in 2020.
There are also magnetometers guarding the doorways. Media, poll workers and challengers need to have a valid identification in order to work.
“A digitized check-in system will contain a maximum number for each group and organization,” he said. “Once we max out on that number no one will be allowed entry, whether it’s the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the NAACP, the League of Women Voters or whoever they are.”
Source: After a chaotic vote count in 2020, here’s what Detroit will do differently this year
The Huntington Place Conclave: The Republican Challenger Shuts Down the Proximity and the Electoral Correspondence
There was a confrontation at a building that is 4 miles away from Huntington Place where the GOP challenger confronted the deputy clerk.
Winfrey said that all of the windows on the first floor had been replaced with bulletproof glass. “We have uniformed and plain-clothed officers. And the alleyway is now blocked off.”
Poll workers should be able to go away from the convention center earlier than in 2020 in order to be protected from angry poll challengers.