WASHINGTON — With Democrats fresh off the enthusiasm of the national convention, the Trump campaign and Republican Party are aiming to steal some of the opposition's thunder by leveling the playing field when it comes to absentee and mail-in ballots in the pivotal battleground state.

The Trump team and Republican National Committee announced on Monday their latest push to get out the vote, launching a website that gives full access to Pennsylvania's election toolkit and lets voters directly request a mail-in or absentee ballot.

Republicans shied away from mail voting while Democrats embraced it amid the pandemic in 2020, with former President Donald Trump falsely claiming that absentee balloting was rife with fraud. Trump lost Pennsylvania to President Joe Biden by fewer than 81,000 votes, and the Democrat received 1.4 million more mail-in ballots than Trump.

The GOP hopes to reverse its fortunes this time around, with the party and its allies pledging earlier this year to raise at least $10 million in Pennsylvania to get out the vote, including in a form that the former president still maligns: Trump still says mail-in voting opens the door to fraud, and he still falsely claims to have won the Keystone State twice, but he now tells his fans the only way to beat the Democrats is with a mail-in response that's "too big to rig."

The strategy allows Trump and his supporters to publicly maintain his debunked beefs about election fraud, while pushing Republicans to get out the vote by beating Democrats at their own game.

Trump's own Justice Department and Homeland Security officials found no evidence of widespread irregularities or fraud affecting the 2020 race.

"As President Trump has consistently said, voting by mail, voting early, and voting on Election Day are all good options," RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement. "Our new Swamp The Vote website in Pennsylvania will make it faster, easier, and more secure than ever for patriots in the Keystone State to deliver their mail ballots for President Trump. This is a crucial, cutting-edge development in our sophisticated ground game, which will help deliver President Trump back to the White House and save America."

SwampTheVoteUSA.com is connected to the state department website to let voters easily access information about early voting and voting by mail. The Trump campaign and GOP said in a news release that "we have to swamp the vote ... and patriots should take advantage of vote by mail, early voting, and Election Day voting — whatever method works best for you."

In a Pittsburgh appearance alongside former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi earlier this month, Whatley stressed that every dollar the RNC raises has two goals: "Get out the vote, protect the ballot."

Whatley, a member of former President George W. Bush's team tracking the Florida recount in 2000, said that Trump chose him as RNC chair in March because of his experience with election integrity issues.

His plan calls for 5,000 poll watchers and hundreds of lawyers in every battleground state to ensure a fair election.

Lawrence Tabas, the state GOP chair, said "Our election integrity teams are committed to ensuring that every legal vote is both cast and counted in a transparent and timely manner to deliver victory in Pennsylvania to President Trump and Senator Vance," he added.

A bipartisan group that includes former Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell on its board was designed earlier this year to help combat allegations that the state's elections are rigged or rife with fraud.

Gov. Josh Shapiro, who made the rounds with several state delegations and gave a rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention last week, announced an Election Threats Task Force earlier this year that includes members of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, state and federal prosecutors, the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and the National Guard.

A report by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University released in June warned that the job of poll watchers — to ensure processes are fair and legal — "has been twisted by some into a means to intimidate and harass voters, poll workers and election officials in violation of the law."

Whatley said that his plan was not to intimidate Democratic voters at the polls. He said he "would rather have a police car in front of a store window than call them after a rock is thrown through."

The secretary of state in Pennsylvania has also issued guidance banning poll watchers from approaching voters in the polling place.

"Pennsylvania's elections are quite secure," said David Goldman, an election law counsel with Informing Democracy, a nonprofit that released its own report on how the state conducts elections. "They have a robust audit process, the recounts are there to ensure the ballots are accurately counted, and canvass and certification have many protections as well. Of course, that doesn't mean that bad faith actors can't take advantage of that."

Lew Irwin, a political science professor at Duquesne University, recently told the Post-Gazette "there is going to be intense scrutiny of these processes."

"Some of that will be unproductive and counterproductive scrutiny," he said. "The Trump campaign and Republican National Committee have decided they're going to flood the zone with observers and people watching. Everybody is getting ready for this."

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