GLEN ALLEN, Va. — Gov. Glenn Youngkin is trying to get Republican voters to do something they don’t love to do: cast their ballots early.

It’s a reversal of the message Republicans have been pounding in recent years. And if Youngkin and his political operation can succeed, it could have profound implications for the rest of the party — not just in Virginia, but nationally ahead of next year’s presidential election.

Former President Donald Trump has spent several years campaigning against mail voting and early voting, and his lies about voter fraud and stolen elections have driven a strong partisan shift in vote method. Early voting used to be something both parties embraced, and that Republicans pursued to try locking in wins in close elections in the pre-Trump era; today, Republicans are far less likely to vote early, preferring to cast ballots at the polls on election day.

“We started behind because the Democrats had started embracing early voting a long time ago,” Youngkin told reporters after a rally in a suburb of Richmond where he jokingly admonished attendees who hadn’t already voted. “But I’ve also given everybody a real free pass to come vote early, get a mail-in ballot and just make sure that your vote is cast and secured by taking advantage of these rules.”

Youngkin’s political operation has invested millions in a “Secure Your Vote” campaign, a message that attempts to lean into and reframe conservative voters’ concerns about election integrity. The campaign urges voters to join the state’s permanent absentee list — signing up to get a ballot mailed to them in every future election — or make a plan to otherwise vote early ahead of this year’s critical legislative elections.

All 140 seats in the state House and state Senate are up this year in Virginia, and both parties believe the race for each chamber is incredibly close. In a recent poll from The Washington Post/Schar School, 47 percent of likely voters said they’d vote for a Democratic legislative candidate, while 45 percent said they’d pick a Republican.

Virginia elections have long been seen as a major bellwether ahead of the on-year contests. And a win for Republicans could give the GOP unified control over government in a state that typically is deep blue for federal elections — which could have dramatic policy implications on everything from abortion to taxes.

Youngkin’s pleas to Republicans to embrace early voting could have significant ramifications heading into 2024, as the GOP looks to claw its way out of the deep hole it dug for itself. Many conservative campaign strategists say the party’s broad abandonment of early voting has been a major tactical mistake that has contributed to a yearslong string of losses on the federal and state level. Virginia Republicans hope success this year will serve as a roadmap for elections elsewhere next year.

Pushing voters to cast a ballot early allows parties to shift resources — door-knocks, targeted digital ads, mailers — away from those voters and into trying to reach lower-propensity voters. And Republican bigwigs hope to convert people who would otherwise not cast a ballot into more regular voters by embracing Virginia’s plethora of early voting options.

“We obviously looked at the challenges that we’ve had in recent years,” David Rexrode, who helms Youngkin’s PAC Spirit of Virginia, said in an interview earlier this month on the push to embrace early voting. “We felt like we needed to, as the governor said, play by the rules and — in the basketball analogy he often uses — play from tipoff into the buzzer.”

There are signs the push might be working.

A greater share of in-person early voting is coming from Republican parts of the state compared to two years ago, according to a POLITICO analysis of early voting data from Virginia’s elections department.

But those shifts are small and uneven across the state, and it is not yet clear whether they reflect greater adoption of early voting or an increase in GOP turnout.

Counties where Youngkin won with at least 60 percent of the two-party vote share two years ago account for 34 percent of the in-person early vote so far this year, compared to 29 percent of the overall early vote across those same counties in 2021.

The trends are less clear with absentee voting, which could reflect several factors, including continued Republican skepticism of vote by mail — which Trump has specifically singled out — as well as Democrats’ greater use of the state’s permanent absentee ballot list.

Areas that heavily favored the GOP governor in 2021 account for a slightly larger share of absentee ballots returned as of Monday compared to two years ago, but the increase is less notable. Statewide, two-thirds of voters who have cast a ballot early, either in-person or absentee, are aged 60 or older, according to the state’s early voter file.

Democrats have noticed the early returns from their rivals’ massive investment.

Tom Bonier, a senior adviser for the data firm TargetSmart, said there has been “some limited level of success, in that you are seeing a larger share of Republicans voting before Election Day than we saw last year or then we saw in 2021.”

“We saw Republicans nationally recognizing that this was a big problem for them, that their voters were not taking advantage of the tactical opportunity,” he said at a briefing arranged by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee last week.

Youngkin’s push has also included significant outreach to conservative media. In appearances on Fox News and other platforms, Youngkin relentlessly plugs his early voting effort, with the conservative hosts often joining in as cheerleaders.

Earlier this month, Fox News host Sean Hannity gave Youngkin the floor to talk about early voting.

The host said it isn’t the “system we want,” but “if Republicans start out Election Day down hundred of thousands of votes, they are greatly reducing their chances of winning these elections. I want every Republican around the country to hear this message.”

Youngkin’s team says voters have responded. After an appearance on a show like Hannity’s, visits to Youngkin’s early voting portal double or more, aides said, and actual applications for mail ballots also jump significantly.

The impact of that success, however, is still to be seen. Bonier asserted that the vast majority of Republicans voting early were already reliable GOP voters — that the party wasn’t turning out new, infrequent voters.

Other efforts to push Republicans to vote early — although often less robust than Youngkin’s — may offer warning signs.

In Wisconsin’s elections this spring, the state Republican Party heavily pushed supporters to vote early in a key state Supreme Court race. Some did, but the election was widely viewed as a failure after the liberal judge blew the conservative candidate out of the water — in part due to Democrats’ prolific turnout machine in the state. Democratic officials estimated their candidate was able to bank a 100,000-vote lead going into Election Day.

The Republican National Committee has also launched its own early-voting program ahead of next year’s presidential contest. The RNC aired an ad for its “bank your vote” campaign during the first presidential primary debate that included top contenders — including Trump — urging Republicans to vote early.

But Trump continues to rail against the voting method. And as the likely presidential nominee, he would be at the top of the ticket next year — raising further uncertainty about how effectively the party can convince its voters to cast a ballot early.

California Republicans, for example, want voters in the Golden State to embrace the method in several battleground House races. But during a speech last month at the state party convention, Trump continued to spread conspiracy theories.

“No way we lose this state in a real election,” he said in a longtime Democratic stronghold that he lost by nearly 30 points.

Republicans hope to cut into Democrats’ early-voting advantage as they look for any edge to win the Nov. 7 election.

“They’re structurally starting off with an advantage,” Rexrode said of Democrats, pointing to how long that party has focused on encouraging — not attacking — early voting. “We’re having to cut into that.”

Early voting is a relatively new phenomenon in Virginia. In 2020, the then-Democratic legislature and then-Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, ushered through a dramatic expansion: 45 days of in-person early voting, no-excuse mail voting and the creation of that permanent mail voting list. Democrats embraced it with gusto, while Republicans largely followed the national party.

And Democrats say the years of Trump-fueled election denialism will continue to hamper Virginia Republicans’ push this year.

“Their efforts are not a surprise,” said Heather Williams, the interim president of the DLCC. But, she added, “They have a long road ahead of them as they try to find their way in a system they’ve spent years casting doubt on.”

A Republican elections attorney who played a key role in trying to overturn the vote in multiple swing states in the 2020 election is coasting to election next month for the Virginia statehouse.

A handful of party insiders have tried for months to stop the candidate, Tim Griffin, from winning election. But despite raising concerns with at least a dozen GOP leaders, including Gov. Glenn Youngkin, their effort has fallen largely on deaf ears.

Griffin worked alongside former President Donald Trump’s campaign for months to fan false claims of election fraud around 2020 and played a key role in trying to overturn the vote in Michigan.

Now, in his current race in Virginia, former opponents are accusing him of registering to vote and filing court paperwork using addresses where he doesn’t live. Nonetheless, Griffin is the strong favorite to win next month’s election for Virginia’s heavily Republican 53rd House district.

Griffin’s efforts in 2020 included challenging grants that local governments in primarily minority areas used to increase voting access via drop boxes and working with Republican officials in Wayne County, Mich., as they prepared affidavits to rescind their votes. As higher-profile attorneys involved in the effort to overthrow the election, including Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro and Jenna Ellis, plead guilty, Griffin’s ascent shows there have been few penalties so far for many of the foot soldiers in the effort.

Ellis and Griffin both held the same title, special counsel, at the Thomas More Society, which led lawsuits seeking to overturn election results in multiple battleground states. The group’s legal efforts ran parallel to those driven by Powell.

Two conservative women have spent the last seven months trying to raise concerns within the party, but they’ve heard little in response. The silence over possible illegal voting is hypocritical, they said, and raises questions about the sincerity of the “election integrity” platform that has helped elevate Youngkin, Trump and many others. And it makes them feel disillusioned with their party.

“They just covered everything up and just strung me along,” says Ginger Burg, an Amherst County school board member who says she’s helped GOP campaigns, including Youngkin’s. “That’s why I was so willing to come forward. I took it to everyone,” she said, referring to correspondence she’s had with multiple officials, copies of which she provided to POLITICO.

Griffin did not respond to text messages and emails sent to him and his campaign. Macaulay Porter, a Youngkin spokesperson, declined to comment.

Burg is the former campaign manager for Sarah Mays, who lost to Griffin in the primary this spring. Both she and Mays have been leading the charge to question Griffin’s residency and realize their efforts may come across as sour grapes. The pair says they have a long allegiance to the Republican Party — and they’re trying to stop someone they see as a fraud. They’re staunch conservatives, they noted, who like Griffin made banning abortion a top campaign issue.

“I wanted to stay out of it and just run a clean, shiny campaign,” said Mays, who runs a Christian daycare and a gun accessory business. “Then it occurred to me: How can I stand before everyone saying that I will uphold morals and values and represent the district and just sit back and say nothing?”

Republicans and Democrats are locked in a heated battle for control of the state Legislature, meaning Republican unity in Richmond would be key in either a narrow majority or minority.

Few observers think Griffin will lose to Democrat Sam Soghor in a district where, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, 73 percent of voters favored Youngkin for governor in 2021.

Legal challenges to stop Griffin over his residency status have failed. The local registrar in April dismissed a voter-eligibility complaint, saying the detached garage he used as his address to register to vote meets “the residency requirements of a non-traditional residence.” More recently he said in a June court filing that he lives in an apartment complex.

“The Republican Party has so much control here, there’s nothing gonna change this,” said Donald Toms, one of the Bedford Republicans who filed the complaint. He added: “I’m to the point where this is a waste of my time. He’s gonna get elected.”

Griffin rose to prominence for his efforts to help Trump overturn the election. He grew up in central Virginia and went to Lynchburg Christian Academy and Appalachian School of Law. He also worked as an assistant Commonwealth’s attorney in both Bedford and Amherst counties in Virginia.

Griffin was also a special counsel to the Thomas More Society, effectively serving as a deputy to attorney Phillip Kline, whose efforts included trying to deliver a slate of pro-Trump electors to the Michigan legislature. Griffin and Kline’s work was part of an initiative called The Amistad Project, which was critical to promoting false claims of election fraud and then helping Trump keep his claims of a rigged election front and center.

Amistad Project filed lawsuits in at least six battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — to allow GOP-led legislatures to appoint false presidential electors after voters had already cast their ballots for Joe Biden. Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani described Griffin’s group as an election integrity “partner.”

“Tim is a national leader on election integrity,” Griffin’s campaign website read, citing his work with Kline and the Amistad Project.

On the night of the 2020 election, Griffin summoned volunteers to challenge the vote count of absentee ballots taking place at Detroit’s TCF Center, the Detroit Free Press reported. “It’s just not fair,” said Griffin, who “stayed all night” there, “intent on protecting Trump from what he believed was a fraudulent process.”

After the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, Griffin sought to rally local activists in Michigan behind efforts to challenge the midterm elections. When the activists said they were dispirited after failing to overturn the 2020 election, he led them to believe it could still happen.

“You guys are in an impossible fight now, but I feel like reinforcements are on the way,” he told Michigan GOP activists during a June 18, 2021, Zoom meeting obtained by POLITICO. He predicted thousands of Biden votes “down here” in Fulton County, Ga., could be thrown out and that Michigan could be next: “Hopefully it’s inspiring to you guys.”

As Griffin gained prominence as an elections attorney, he became Bedford County’s GOP chair in February 2020. Yet, months later, he was cited by law enforcement for “disturbing wildlife,” specifically petting wild ponies in Maryland. On those forms, he listed an out-of-county address in Lynchburg.

Beginning in November of that year, the petitioners allege Griffin voted in three general elections and one primary while registered to vote at an Airbnb address in Virginia’s 53rd district. But in a November 2020 notarized court document, Griffin said he had stopped living at the Airbnb that July.

“He basically does not have a permanent address,” Griffin’s attorney said in a November 2021 court hearing over custody of his children. During that hearing, the owner of the Airbnb said the two had no formal rental agreement, though he had allowed Griffin to use it as a mailing address.

On March 2 of this year, the same day he filed to run for state delegate, Griffin registered to vote from a detached garage in the same city of Forest, Bedford County.

A group of Bedford County residents filed a complaint the next month, seeking to get Griffin removed from the voter rolls for not meeting residency requirements to register to vote. The complaint said there was no finished bathroom in that garage, making it highly unlikely Griffin was actually living there. “We went by and saw the garage and realized there’s no way he could live there,” said Toms.

The local registrar, Barbara Gunter, rejected the complaint, saying during a public hearing that “It is my decision that Mr. Griffin has both a place of abode, and has established domicile sufficient to meet the residency requirements of a non-traditional residence.”

Griffin’s critics believe Gunter may have been under political pressure — Republicans nominate the majority of the members of the elections board that oversees her job — but Gunter rejected that claim.

“My board stayed in their lane. They did not impact my decision at all. They did not talk to me about it. They knew it was my call and my call alone,” she told POLITICO.

Ann Duncan, the Democrat who chairs the board, defended Gunter as a “very, very dedicated registrar” and said she “followed all procedures and ruled with all the information she had on hand,” citing tax statements and other documents Griffin presented.

Griffin is now using an apartment complex as his address, though he declined to provide a copy of his lease and his name does not appear on the complex’s electronic directory, according to a Cardinal News article.

Burg says the group of concerned Republicans isn’t giving up. They hired a private investigator who, Burg said, has only once seen Griffin’s car in the parking lot of the apartment complex.

Griffin has the support of a number of community leaders, including the Commonwealth’s attorneys he worked for in Bedford and Amherst. The efforts to stop his ascension to office — including a website detailing his residency problems that Mays says she did not create — have not made a dent on him politically.

Among the individuals backing his run is former Virginia House Speaker Vance Wilkins, who is credited by many for the GOP takeover of the Virginia House of Delegates in the late 1990s and remains active in local Republican politics.

Prior to the May convention, Burg said, she texted Youngkin on his personal cell phone with links to accusations about Griffin’s residency. While Youngkin did not respond, said Burg, his attorney Richard Cullen did.

“He just said he was calling for Glenn” and to “let the process play out,” said Burg. “I told him his process sucked.”

Weeks later, as it appeared Griffin was about to win the primary, Burg texted Rich Anderson, the state’s GOP chair, to tell him he now had a nominee who “has committed election fraud and lives in an illegal garage apartment.” Anderson responded: “Is it publicly announced? And what was the vote? Want to tell the Gov.”

Anderson said the exchange was part of his effort to report all election results to state officials, including the governor. “That is my standard practice,” he said in an email. “The role that the state party and I play is to ensure compliance with party rules and be agnostic about candidates and eventual nominees,” he said.

Anderson dismissed questions about Griffin’s residency as a personal feud. The issue, he said, is being “driven principally by those who had a vested interest in Ms. Mays’ campaign and refuse to accept or respect the outcome of the democratic process.”

Momentum is building in the criminal cases against Donald Trump for trying to hijack the 2020 presidential election. But the federal court tasked with examining those allegations fully and fairly now risks being ensnared in a futile, even counterproductive, sideshow about Trump’s free speech rights.

At issue are the so-called “gag orders” imposed by judges in New York and Washington, D.C. While these may be perfectly constitutional and well-deserved, they may end up doing more harm than good — for both legal and political reasons.

The two criminal trials focused on election subversion first got a boost last week when Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro reached plea deals in the Fulton County, Georgia, case. Then a third Trump team lawyer, Jenna Ellis, pleaded guilty Tuesday. The light sentences they received have left some “gobsmacked” for their leniency, but they were likely well motivated: A rational prosecutor offers such deep discounts only when she believes a person can supply substantial useful evidence against co-defendants. Here, Powell, Chesebro and Ellis likely have evidence bearing directly on Trump’s intentions — a key legal question — as well as material that may push other defendants to take pleas, and turn against Trump too.

But at the very moment when the truth-eliciting apparatus of the legal system is accelerating, a flurry of activity surrounding the gag orders might kick sand in the gears.

In New York state court on Friday, Justice Arthur Engoron imposed a $5,000 fine on Trump for failing to take down a post targeting one of the judge’s law clerks in violation of a gag order he’d previously issued. In Washington later that day, federal Judge Tanya Chutkan temporarily paused the gag order she had placed on Trump to allow his lawyers a chance to make fresh arguments against the restrictions.

Chutkan and Engoron’s gag orders may well stand on firm legal ground. Constraints on defendants’ speech are commonplace in pretrial arrangements. Sam Bankman-Fried, for example, had his bail revoked and went to jail for speaking to the press. Gag orders were also imposed in trials facing Kobe Bryant and O.J. Simpson.

But, unsurprisingly, Trump has already said he will appeal Chutkan’s gag order. While there is a sound basis in law for her action, there is also a great deal of confusion in the relevant Supreme Court case law on speech restraints upon criminal defendants.

Leading precedents such as the Gentile and Stuart cases date from the late 20th century — before social media, doxxing and online lynch mobs. Those cases are keyed to very specific factual scenarios. These have little resemblance to a former president running for national office after trying to seize the office through violence and fraud. An appeal from Trump’s attorneys first to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and then to the Supreme Court would certainly take weeks — and more likely many months.

The result would be uncertainty and festering delay in the underlying criminal proceeding, all without any meaningful gain in public safety.

It’s easy to imagine how Trump’s lawyers could precipitate a lengthy, distracting and ultimately destructive trail of appeals challenging the orders. Long before he became president, Trump showed great skill in using courts as tools to filibuster, delay and wear out his political and business opponents. It would be bizarre if he didn’t take the same tack now — when the stakes are so much higher.

It’s also notable that both Chutkan and Engoron crafted narrow injunctions in their bid to prevent foreseeable harm to government officials and witnesses. The effect of these two much-protested gag orders is, in fact, rather modest. Not even Trump’s lawyers claim a First Amendment right to intimidate witnesses or obstruct justice. And indeed, as a condition of securing bail in Georgia, Trump already agreed not to intimidate co-defendants or witnesses or “otherwise obstruct the administration of justice.” So Chutkan and Engoron’s orders restrain Trump merely from attacking court officials or prosecutors. Witness tampering is off the table, in theory, because it’s already against the law.

But if that’s the judges’ goal, the gag orders will almost certainly have little effect. The Chutkan order, for example, applies only to “parties and counsel,” i.e., Trump and his lawyers. It does not bind anyone not involved in the litigation. And at this moment in American politics, organized campaigns of hate and violent threats can be swiftly directed at a politician’s enemies without the politician in question even raising a finger. By its terms, Chutkan’s order does not prevent such a third-party intimidation campaign triggered by the ex-president’s wink, nudge or tacit approval.

If this seems implausible, just think about the Republican holdouts against Rep. Jim Jordan’s failed bid for House speaker. Ask Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) about the “credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls” she’s received. Ask Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) about the threatening texts his wife received. And the list goes on.

Jordan, of course, disavowed any role in coordinating these threats, and roundly (if very belatedly) condemned them. But he didn’t need to launch them on his own because, as he likely knew, Sean Hannity’s staff were already willing and ready to post a handy enemies list, complete with phone numbers, to the web.

There’s a thicket of mainstream and fringe media voices and activists around the former president raring to go. There’s no reason to rule out intimidation campaigns of the sort that have marred the House speaker race. Trump’s cut-outs could easily work around the existing orders. And it’s very unlikely either Chutkan or Engoron has the stomach to issue an injunction covering news anchors, bloggers and more of the media.

The existing “gag orders,” in short, will be unable to hold off the looming flood. When push comes to shove — as it often does with the former president — they will be futile. And at the same time, Trump has richly mined them for campaign-speech fodder. Predictably, Trump misrepresents their effect to paint himself as the victim of a “deep state” conspiracy to squash his freedom of speech.

Those repulsed by the former president’s threats and insinuations may well have justice and even the law on their side. But the wiser course would be for Chutkan and Engoron to further narrow the orders to cover conduct that’s already clearly criminal, or else permanently suspend their gag orders. That might not seem satisfying — but it would ease the path to a truthful airing of how our democracy was attacked, and who should be blamed for the lasting damage.