* Illinois Republican Party Chair Kathy Salvi last week…

Early voting will be well underway and I encourage every Republican to start preparing a clear plan to vote now.

Early voting gives you flexibility, convenience, and certainty that your voice will be heard in this critical election. […]

I encourage you to take the pledge to vote early or vote by mail — and then ask your friends, family, and fellow Republicans to do the same. When we commit early, we build momentum, strengthen our grassroots efforts, and ensure Republicans turn out strong across Illinois.

* The party is pushing vote by mail even though the president is totally against voting by mail as a concept. This has hampered the party here for years…

* Rick Pearson wrote about that earlier Salvi newsletter, the above Trump post and also this today…

But even as Salvi pushes early voting and vote-by-mail, she also has been encouraging “election integrity” efforts that involve supporters of Trump’s unfounded belief that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent.

In a previous newsletter on Jan. 9, Salvi urged supporters to follow the actions of the Illinois Conservative Union and its chair, Carol Davis, a self-professed “election integrity” expert. Davis has contended “there is fraud in every election in this country,” questioned the integrity of election machinery and has said vote-by-mail ballots are susceptible to fraud and are part of a Democratic plot to do away with in-person voting.

Davis promotes her organization’s connection to Cleta Mitchell, one of Trump’s post-2020 election attorneys who unsuccessfully tried to overturn election results in several states.

Salvi also has promoted that poll watchers and others participate in “training” offered by the far-right Moline-based Illinois Freedom Alliance. The group wants bans on early voting, voting by mail and a ban on all electronic election equipment. It also promotes events by saying, “Our elections are corrupt and broken.”

Discuss.