These Republicans have united to defend the legitimacy of American elections and election officials.

ATLANTA (AP) It was Election Day last November, and one of Georgia's top elections officials saw reports of a voting machine problem in an eastern Pennsylvania county were gaining ground online.

Thus, Gabriel Sterling, a Republican who had defended the 2020 elections in Georgia amid a wave of threats, published a message to his nearly 71,000 subscribers on the social platform that all votes would be counted correctly.

He was immediately criticized by one commenter for why he was weighing in on another state's election, while other responses reiterated false claims about widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

WATCH: How powerful conservatives pushed the big lie that the 2020 election was fraudulent

It's always the right thing to do, Sterling said at a meeting the next day, emphasizing the importance of Republican officials speaking out in defense of the election. We must be prepared to constantly repeat that other states act differently from us, but they are not cheating.

Sterling, director of operations for the Georgia secretary of state's office, is part of an effort launched after the last presidential election that aims to bring together Republican officials willing to defend the nation's election systems and the people who run them. They want officials to reinforce the message that elections are secure and accurate, an approach they say is particularly important as the country heads toward another divisive presidential election.

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

Six months before the likely rematch between Democratic President Joe Biden and former Republican President Donald Trump, election officials are deeply concerned about the persistence of public distrust in voting and the counting of ballots, in especially among Republicans. Trump, the presumptive Republican Party nominee, continues to sow doubt about the last presidential election and warns his supporters without citing any evidence that Democrats will try to cheat in the next one.

Last week, at a campaign rally in Michigan, Trump reiterated his false claim that Democrats rigged the 2020 election. But we are not going to allow them to rig the presidential election, he said. he declares.

Only 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 from last year.

READ MORE: False Election Claims Damaged GOP Confidence in Vote Counting, AP-NORC Poll Finds

Republicans have an obligation to defend our system because our party is partly responsible for our current situation, said Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, who is part of the group and was re-elected last year. But it also makes strategic sense for Republicans to say: Hey, Republicans, you can trust this. Don't stay at 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 goal has been to begin discussions about confidence in elections, primarily among conservative leaders, and to develop a set of principles to achieve this.

This has never been and never will be about Trump specifically, said Matt Germer, director of governance at the R Street Institute and one of the lead organizers of the effort. These are democratic principles at a higher level. What does it mean to be a conservative who believes in democracy and the rule of law?

He said the goal was to put in place a structure to support election officials who might 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 indicted 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.

One of the group's guiding principles is that Republican officials must publicly affirm the security and integrity of elections in the United States and avoid actively stoking doubt about elections in other jurisdictions.

Kim Wyman, a Republican who previously served as Washington state's top elections official, said it's imperative when officials face questions about elections elsewhere not to dodge the question by promoting election procedures in their own state.

It's okay to say you don't know another state's different laws and procedures, Wyman said, but she urged her Republican colleagues to emphasize what the states have in common: “the security measures, the measures monitoring to ensure that elections are conducted in accordance with the rules. integrity.

Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab, a Republican who has participated in meetings held 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 speaking directly about something specific happening in another state.

If I start going beyond my scope and role, then they don't trust me. And if they don't trust me, then they don't trust the elections in Kansas, and that's very important, Schwab said in an interview.

Some election officials who have questioned election procedures outside their states have a different view.

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 putting in place requirements of voter identification across the country, not about silencing those who have questions.

Our primary task as election officials is to build trust, and that happens by strengthening protocols, not weakening them, he said.

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

Things that are happening in other states that are going wrong are not the result of some secret cabal conspiracy, he said in an interview. This is the far-fetched stuff that makes great YouTube videos and so on. But the real problems happening in other states are being brought out into the open and in public view.

UtahLt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican who is the state's top election official and who participated in the group's discussions, said it's important to avoid criticism from other states and vouch for legitimacy election procedures for another reason: it can help reduce threats and harassment directed at election workers.

A recent investigation by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School found that nearly 40 percent of local election officials had been victims of such abuse. This caused many people to quit their jobs. Of 29 clerks 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, to accuse them of cheating, to 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.

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