These Republicans have come together to defend the legitimacy of elections and election officials in the US

ATLANTA (AP) — It was Election Day last November, and one of Georgia’s top election officials saw that reports of a problem with a voting machine in an eastern Pennsylvania county were gaining traction online.

Thus, Gabriel Sterling, a Republican who defended the 2020 elections in Georgia amid a series of threats, published a message to his almost 71 thousand followers on the social platform X explaining what had happened and saying that all votes would be counted correctly .

He faced immediate criticism from one commenter about why he was influencing another state’s elections, while other responses reiterated false claims about widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

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“It’s still the right thing to do,” Sterling said at a meeting the next day, stressing the importance of Republican officials speaking out to defend the election. “We have to be prepared to say over and over again: other states are doing this differently than we are, but they’re not cheating.”

Sterling, the chief of operations for the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, is part of an effort started after the last presidential election that seeks to bring together Republican officials who are willing to defend the country’s election systems and the people who run them. They want officials to reinforce the message that elections are safe and accurate, an approach they see as especially important as the country heads into another divisive presidential contest.

The group has held meetings in several states, with more meetings planned before the Nov. 5 election.

Six months before the likely rematch between Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican former President Donald Trump, concerns are high among election officials that public distrust in voting and vote counting persists, especially among Republicans. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, continues to sow doubt about the last presidential election and warns his followers – without citing any evidence – that Democrats will try to cheat in the next one.

Last week, during a campaign rally in Michigan, Trump repeated his false claim that Democrats rigged the 2020 election. “But we will not allow them to rig the presidential election,” he said.

Just 22 percent of Republicans expressed high confidence that votes will be counted accurately in November, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll last year.

SEE MORE INFORMATION: False election claims have undermined GOP confidence in vote counts, says AP-NORC poll

“It’s an obligation on the part of Republicans to stand up and defend our system because our party — there is some blame for our position right now,” said Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, who is part of the group and was re-elected. last year. “But it’s also strategically wise for Republicans to say, ‘Hey, Republicans, you can rely on this. Don’t stay home.'”

The effort, which began about 18 months ago, is coordinated by the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and the center-right think tank R Street Institute. The aim has been to start conversations about confidence in elections, particularly among conservative officials, and develop a set of principles to achieve this.

“This has never been and will never be specifically about Trump,” said Matt Germer, director of governance at the R Street Institute and a lead organizer of the effort. “This is about democratic principles at a higher level – what does it mean to be a conservative who believes in democracy, in the rule of law?”

He said the goal is to have a framework to support election officials who may find themselves in situations like that of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in 2020, when he supported Trump but rejected false claims that the election was stolen. . Georgia prosecutors have since charged Trump and others, alleging a conspiracy to overturn the results. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

“You can be a Republican and believe in all Republican ideas without having to say the election was stolen,” Germer said.

A guiding principle for the group is that Republican officials should “publicly affirm the security and integrity of U.S. elections and avoid actively fueling doubts about elections in other jurisdictions.”

Kim Wyman, a Republican who previously served as Washington state’s top election official, said it is imperative when officials are faced with questions about an election elsewhere that they not avoid the issue by promoting election procedures in their own state.

It’s okay to say you don’t know another state’s various laws and procedures, Wyman said, but she urged her Republican colleagues to emphasize what the states have in common – “the safety measures, the control measures to ensure that elections are conducted with integrity.”

Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab, a Republican who has attended meetings organized by the group, said he believes there are certain aspects of the election that officials should feel comfortable talking about. But he said he would remain cautious about talking directly about something specific happening in another state.

“If I start going beyond my domain and my role, they won’t trust me. And if they don’t trust me, then they won’t trust elections in Kansas, and that’s very important,” Schwab said in a statement. interview.

Some election officials who have questioned election procedures outside their state have a different perspective.

Secretary of State Mac Warner of West Virginia, a Republican who has questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election, said the focus should be on improving policies, such as implementing voter ID requirements nationwide, not silencing those who have doubts.

“Our main task as election officials is to build trust, and that comes from strengthening protocols, not weakening them,” he said.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican who has raised questions about the way elections are conducted in other states, criticized what he called “activist lawsuits” and state officials seeking to change voting rules previously set by state officials. legislators.

“Things that happen in other states that go wrong are not the result of some secret cabal conspiracy,” he said in an interview. “That’s the fancy stuff that makes great YouTube videos and everything else. But the real things that go wrong in other states are in public view.”

Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican who is the state’s top election official and has participated in the group’s discussions, said avoiding criticism of other states and ensuring the legitimacy of election procedures is important for another reason: It can help to reduce threats and harassment directed at election workers.

A recent survey by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law found that nearly 40 percent of local election officials have experienced this type of abuse. This caused many to leave their jobs. Of the 29 employees in Utah, Henderson said 20 are new since 2020 and nine have never overseen an election.

“It’s one thing to suggest that someone could do something better. It’s another thing to impugn their integrity, their character, accuse them of cheating, accuse them of nefarious things that don’t happen,” Henderson said. “It’s exhausting.”

Associated Press writer Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.