Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration on Thursday began meeting with law enforcement, civil defense officials and election officials in Pennsylvania to identify election threats in the battleground state with the presidential election just eight months away. He announced that he would adjust how he would fight.
Shapiro said Pennsylvania has become a magnet for baseless allegations of election fraud and lawsuits were filed to undo Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state and keep then-President Donald Trump in power. In response to that failure, a special committee to combat election threats was created.
Conservatives rally behind Pennsylvania Amish farmers raided by police over milk sales
It will be led by Secretary of State Al Schmidt, the top election official.
The task force’s mission is to develop a plan for sharing and coordinating information in the fight against threats to the electoral process, voter intimidation, and misinformation about voting and elections.
“Pennsylvania is the birthplace of American democracy, and we will continue to protect Pennsylvanians’ fundamental freedoms and work to ensure a free, fair, safe, and secure election this November,” Shapiro said in a statement. “I’m here,” he said.
Partners include the U.S. Attorney’s Office, State Attorney General’s Office, County Election Administrators, Department of Homeland Security, Pennsylvania State Police, Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, and Pennsylvania National Guard.
Pennsylvania is expected to be a key state again in the fall presidential election.
Chester County, Pennsylvania, election workers process mail-in and absentee ballots at West Chester University in West Chester, Nov. 4, 2020. Law enforcement, civil defense officials and election officials have begun meeting in Pennsylvania to coordinate identification and absentee voting procedures. Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration announced Thursday, February 29, 2024, that it will fight election threats in battleground states with the presidential election just eight months away. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
In 2020, Trump said “bad things” were happening in Philadelphia and expressed distrust of Pennsylvania, which remains in Trump’s crosshairs.
In December, President Trump told his supporters to “protect the vote” and to “go into” Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta and “watch the votes as they come in.”
As attorney general, Mr. Shapiro played a central role in defending Pennsylvania’s 2020 election from Republican efforts to overturn it in court, but he also said that administration officials had no legal, law enforcement, or election administration concerns over the election. He said that preparations are underway.
Mr. Shapiro’s State Department is devoting more resources to combating election misinformation and improving the connectivity and processing speed of the state’s digital voter registration database, which counties use on a daily basis.
New video shows Philadelphia fugitive leaving home in handcuffs after fleeing from police
He created a department to train county election workers and attempted to standardize mail-in voting to reduce common mistakes by registered voters that led to countless lawsuits.
It appears that elections are coming soon.
Complicating matters is a state law that prohibits counties from processing mail-in ballots before Election Day, creating an opening for conspiracy theories and false claims inspired by President Trump in 2020. There are growing concerns that the count in Pennsylvania will drag on again.
Almost every other state allows mail-in ballots to be processed before Election Day.
Schmidt, a former Philadelphia elections official who has said he endured death threats to protect the city’s 2020 vote-counting operations from President Trump’s lies, said in recent weeks that the experienced administrator He said that the people leaving election offices one after another was a threat to the election.
Schmidt said Monday at a Pennsylvania Press Club luncheon that about 70 county election officials in 67 counties recently retired. Schmidt said inexperience leads to mistakes that lead to doubts about the election.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Schmidt said any mistake “especially in an environment where any mistake could easily be interpreted as intentional, malicious, and an attempt to change the outcome of an election.”
