Since before the 2020 election, former President Donald Trump has been sharply critical of absentee mail-in voting and early in-person voting as being "corrupt" and prone to voter fraud, yet all of that appears to have suddenly changed.

The Trump campaign, in conjunction with the Republican National Committee, has launched an all-out effort to encourage Trump's supporters to embrace and take full advantage of absentee mail-in and early in-person voting options, according to Fox News.

The move appears to be intended to try to reduce the substantial lead Democrats typically gain through absentee mail-in and early in-person voting in most recent election cycles while still attempting to maintain the Republican Party's traditional Election Day surge of voting to overcome any remaining deficits in vote totals.

Trump campaign now promoting absentee mail-in and early in-person voting

On Tuesday, the Trump campaign and the RNC's Trump Force 47 project jointly announced a new effort dubbed Swamp the Vote USA which is a successor to the RNC's prior Bank Your Vote program and is intended to "promote the use of absentee and mail ballots and early in-person voting."

The Trump Force 47 program is a grassroots-organizing creation of the RNC that is focused on "mobilizing highly-targeted voters in critical precincts across the battleground states and districts."

In a statement, former President Trump said, "Republicans must win and we will use every appropriate tool to beat the Democrats because they are destroying our country."

"Whether you vote absentee, by mail, early in-person or on election day, we are going to protect the vote," he continued. "We make sure your ballot is secure and your voice is heard."

"We must swamp the radical Democrats with massive turnout," Trump added. "The way to win is to swamp them, if we swamp them with votes they can’t cheat. You need to make a plan, register, and vote any way possible. We have got to get your vote."

Pennsylvania GOP rolled out an early voting push last month

Just one month ago, Axios reported on the unexpected emergence of "Trump's stunning flip-flop on early voting" and highlighted the former president's sudden change in tone about absentee mail-in and early in-person voting after years of lambasting those options as "corrupt" and "crooked" and rife with fraud.

The outlet pointed to the surprising launch of a GOP effort in Pennsylvania, which included ads featuring former first son Donald Trump Jr., that encouraged Keystone State voters to make use of mail-in ballots -- even though just a couple of months earlier Trump himself had insisted during a Michigan rally that "Mail-in voting is totally corrupt."

It was noted that while the Pennsylvania GOP had made up substantial ground in terms of mail-in voting during the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats in the state still maintained a sizeable advantage in that regard.

Yet, in an internal memo obtained by Axios, one of the leaders of that Republican effort in Pennsylvania explained, "Our program never sought to overtake Democrats in vote-by-mail voting outright ... our goal has always been to continue to chip away at their advantage and narrow the gap."

Biden's campaign calls out Trump's suddenly changed stance

Of course, former President Trump's apparent about-face on the issue of absentee mail-in and early in-person voting did not go unnoticed by Democrats or the Biden campaign, as campaign spokesman James Singer told Fox News, "Donald Trump told his supporters as recently as February that mail-in voting was 'totally corrupt' -- last September he proposed eliminating mail-in-voting altogether."

"Trump has spent years saying early and mail-in voting was 'fraudulent,' 'cheating,' and 'crooked.' Apparently his campaign feels otherwise," the Biden camp's spokesman added. "Trump should own up to the lies about voting and elections he’s been telling for years."