CAMP HILL, PA. — U.S. Rep. Scott Perry (R-10th District) made his expected annual visit to the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference on Friday, but challenged his fellow conservatives to embrace a method of voting that is popular with Democrats: vote-by-mail. 

“I didn’t pick the battlefield that I was going to have to fight on and neither did you,” Perry said. “It is what it is. We have what we have.”

Perry said that if he had it his way, there wouldn’t be “Election Month or Election Week,” but just an Election Day where voters would provide identification, but that isn’t the case. He said Republicans have to embrace Pennsylvania’s mail-in ballots, adding that the legislature “probably” won’t be changing the law.

“The way it’s going to happen is this,” Perry said. “We got to take the system that they have, the system that was put in place, and we’re going to beat them at their own game and when we beat them at their own game, they’ll be crying to show up on Election Day with their identification.”

Following applause from the audience, he urged them to “stay in the fight” and make sure everyone they know is registered to vote, and follows through at the ballot box. 

Perry claimed that if all registered Republicans would vote, no matter what the method, they would win every election. 

Democrats have, in recent elections, used mail voting at significantly higher rates than Republicans. So pronounced is the split that in 2020, President Joe Biden won the mail vote in 14 out of 15 states analyzed by 538.com, while Trump likewise won the Election Day vote in 14 out of 15. That list included Pennsylvania.

Perry has been a regular at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference for years, which takes place within his district. He wasn’t the only Republican at the conference to urge fellow Republicans to vote by mail.

David McCormick, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, told the audience Friday that “it’s something we’ve got to embrace or we’re going to lose.”

Just outside of the conference room, the Pennsylvania Republican Party had a sign-in sheet encouraging voters to sign up to “bank your vote” by committing to vote early, while Win Again PAC also had signs outside of the venue that read “Beat the Democrats Vote By MAIL.” 

Despite the coordinated efforts from Republicans, former President Donald Trump has called mail-in voting “totally corrupt,” as recently as February, delivering mixed messaging to GOP voters.

Perry, a former member of the House Freedom Caucus, has made headlines in recent years due to his effort in reportedly boosting Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election in Pennsylvania.

Trump will be in Pennsylvania on April 13 for a fundraiser in the Philadelphia suburbs and a rally in the Lehigh Valley. Perry was in attendance for Trump’s February visit to Harrisburg to a National Rifle Association event.