By Jarrett Renshaw
Philadelphia (Reuters) – The Republican National Committee on Tuesday unveiled its latest effort to attract Hispanic voters: a new Spanish-language website that helps register voters while guiding them through the voting options in their states.
The Republican Party strengthened its efforts to promote mail balloting, even as President Donald Trump continues his near-daily assault on the practice. The president’s attacks have dampened Republican enthusiasm for mail balloting.
Nationally, Hispanics make up the largest minority voting group, at more than 13% of eligible voters. Biden’s support with Latino voters across the country has dropped; they favored him over Trump by 9 percentage points in August, down from 30 points in July, according to Reuters/Ipsos data.
“In the most crucial election of our lifetime, it has never been more important for voters to have the information they need to take an action to vote, whether by Absentee, Early Voting, or voting on Election Day,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement.
The site, vote.gop and its new Spanish-language version, gives voters customized choices based on the options in their respective state and also sends them emails tailored to their preferences that reminds them of important deadlines. Democrats have a similar website and have long had a Spanish-language version.
The expanded website is part of the Republican Party’s get-out-the-vote effort.
Since the beginning of the election cycle, 700,000 voters have registered to vote or checked their voter registration on the site, according to the RNC.
The party has also gained over 140,000 new voters from volunteer fieldwork, including 20,000 new Republicans over just the last three weeks, according to the RNC. By comparison, Republicans registered 46,000 voters in 2016 – and has tripled its 2016 volunteer voter registrations this cycle.
(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
