In a move that contradicts their prior stance, Republican lawmakers – including former president Donald Trump – are calling on GOP voters to vote early in-person or cast their ballots by mail in the upcoming 2024 election cycle.

This goes against requests in 2020, initiated mainly by Trump, to vote in-person or turn in ballots on election days, instead of using mail or drop boxes. Now, campaigns and initiatives launched by Republican leaders will focus on these measures widely practiced by Democratic voters.

In the last legislative session Texas banned drive-thru voting and overnight early-voting hours, and this session the state intervened again,  passing legislation after Republican leaders accused Harris County in particular of intentionally suppressing Republican votes.

Although the regular legislative session is over, more bills further restricting election processes may be reconsidered in the Legislature as Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick asked Governor Greg Abbott for several election-security related bills be added to a special session agenda.

Bob Stein, Rice University political science professor, said the former president and fellow GOP politicians are taking a “we’ve got to fight fire with fire” approach in an attempt to secure more Republican victories.

“The attack by Trump at the national level during the 2020 election against mail-in voting, early voting and any type of convenience voting, set the Republican Party back,” Stein said. “It probably was a significant portion as to why they lost in Georgia in 2021, why they did in 2022, and why they might continue to have this problem.”

Stein said the Republican Party essentially “killed the goose that laid the golden egg” once it started considering anything that made voting easier a form of “voting fraud,” as early voting and many of these measures started in the Republican Party before they were embraced by Democratic voters.

What Republican election consultants found is that their base prefers mail-in voting, early voting and Election Day voting centers – all of which have drawn state and federal dissent from GOP leaders.

Harris County was the target of these attacks when several polling locations opened late, had malfunctioning machines and more than two dozen voting sites in majority-Republican neighborhoods were temporarily closed due to a shortage of paper ballots.

Because these issues occurred, many Republican challengers who lost their races against their Democratic counterparts filed election contests under claims that these were intentional efforts to create voter fraud, Stein said.

This prompted legislation by Senator Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) during this year’s regular Legislative session, which included Senate Bill 1750 and Senate Bill 1933. These bills are set to be law, pending Abbott's signature. The first bill will put county election operations back in the hands of the county clerk and county tax accessor-collector, while the second will allow the Secretary of State oversight of election processes if problems are reported.

If Patrick's suggestion is approved by Abbott, these bills may not be the only ones to become law. Those on the lieutenant governor's list up for review would  include Senate Bill 990, which would eliminate countywide polling on Election Day; Senate Bill 1039, that attaches a civil penalty for election irregularities; Senate Bill 1907, which appoints a district judge to supervise election processes if records are not delivered by the deadline; and Senate Bill 1911 that calls on each county to provide a sufficient number of supplies at all polling locations.

All these measures to restrict the accessibility to voting, contrasts what out-of-state Republican leaders are asking for to increase Republican voter turn-out to win future elections.

However, Stein said that GOP leaders can use these pending laws to assure their base they’ve done the work needed to secure their votes, “They’ve got to say they’ve fixed the problem, that voting by mail and early voting is safe now,” he said.

“It’s going to be hard to get people who have been told that these methods are a part of democratic conspiracy, to remove underlying doubt or skepticism that this is wrong and potentially dangerous,” Stein said. “It’s giving the base mixed messages.”

But according to Stein, GOP leaders – especially in places like Harris County – will have to if they want to increase voter turnout and have Republican candidates win against their Democratic opponents.

“If they don’t convince their base to stop voting on Election Day and move it earlier, they’re going to be at a disadvantage,” Stein said.