MARK MARONEY/Sun-Gazette Pennsylvania State Treasurer Stacy Garrity stops outside the 28th annual Lincoln Day dinner at the Genetti Hotel on Saturday. Garrity was the keynote speaker for the event.

State Treasurer Stacy Garrity called on fellow Republicans to embrace mail-in ballots and organize a better ground game to avoid key political losses as the party did last year to Democrats, especially in the U.S. Senate and governor races.

Garrity, who was the keynote speaker at the 28th annual Lincoln Day dinner at the Genetti Hotel on Saturday night, was joined by others in her party issuing a similar call-to-arms, but Garrity brought the most sobering message to GOP loyalists, many who disputed and continue to question legitimacy of mail-in ballots.

“I think the fight starts right here in Lycoming County,” she said, adding she has given a similar warning message to 35 counties thus far.

Telling those in attendance of the consequences of not getting behind mail-in ballots, as Democrats did by “receiving 350% more mail-ins” than did Republicans, Garrity delivered a dose of election results reality in 2023 for those who argue about the legitimacy of this form of registered voters selecting who they want to see in public office.

“In November, we had a chance to send a common sense outsider to the United States Senate,” she said, without naming Dr. Mehmet Oz and his defeat to former Lt. Gov. John Fetterman.

She went further in her warning to the hundreds of GOP supporters seated in the hotel’s Grand Ballroom which had paintings of presidents Lincoln and George Washington on each side of the front stage.

Republicans were unable to keep the state House of Representatives, she said, allowing the Democrats to have a majority, and the state elected a Democrat by a wide margin to be in the governor’s mansion for the next four years.

“I think we have the right message,” Garrity said. “To win the game you have to be on the field, and 2022 was not a failure of the conservative message, it was a failure of us to deliver it.”

“It is imperative that we win the judicial and local races,” she said. She said voters must make sure that “our elected officials follow the constitution.”

“This is our opportunity to level the playing field and start winning again because guess what? If you’re in a 100-yard dash and you give your opponent a 45-yard head start,” the party will lose political races, she said.

“We need to embrace the mail-in (ballots) no matter what the past objections were,” she said.

“We have to live in the present.”