Republican National Committee member Shawn Steel, who is also Rep. Michelle Steel’s (R-CA) husband, said the party must “adapt or die” as it relates to Democratic ballot harvesting.
In an interview on SiriusXM’s “Breitbart News Sunday,” Steel said elections have changed due to the practice. He further recounted that his wife’s campaign utilized the strategy to win reelection in California’s 48th Congressional District.
Rep. Michelle Steel's husband Shawn Steel, a Republican National Committee member, says the party must "adapt or die" to Democrat ballot harvesting, according to a report. https://t.co/RcMUqXVPgQ
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) November 15, 2022
He said the California law made elections a “different game” and that he doesn’t like it. However, he added that he is not ashamed of the effort since it’s “explicitly the law.”
Several states have outlawed the practice, which is defined as a person collecting absentee or mail-in ballots from many individuals. These will be dropped into the mail or at a collection location.
The Golden State legalized the practice in 2016, which by most accounts has greatly benefited the state Democratic Party. There were issues, the Washington Post reported, that led legislators to make it illegal to pay workers for the number of ballots collected.
Employers are also not permitted to ask their employees to produce their ballots at the job site.
The Steel campaign stressed the importance of reaching out to community leaders such as church elders to get immigrant voters to the polls. This ballot harvesting was particularly effective in Korean and Vietnamese places of worship.
Shawn Steel said that the result is several generations having faith that they can “give it to this organization.”
Part of Rep. Steel’s path to victory was through a strident anti-communist stance that struck a chord with voters who fled communist regimes.
Her husband said that the effort of “knocking on 200,000 doors, campaigning in seven languages, and fiercely taking on the CCP” achieved positive results. How positive? President Joe Biden carried the 48th Congressional District by six points in 2020.
The representative’s husband noted that 40% of the voters in the district were born outside of the country and became citizens legally. In fact, Orange County represents the largest Vietnamese community in the world outside of Vietnam.
Steel said the leftists’ characterization of the GOP as ‘White conservative racists” fell flat in the community. He noted the common Asian immigrant on the street is far removed from those in universities who are “predictably left-wing and hate America.”
