Gov. Josh Shapiro creates task force to prepare Pa. for potential threats to 2024 election

Gov. Josh Shapiro announced Thursday that he’s creating a task force to combat and prevent any threats to Pennsylvania’s 2024 presidential election.

Secretary of State Al Schmidt will lead the Election Threats Task Force made up of state, federal, and local officials, as first reported by The Inquirer. The group met for the first time earlier this month to streamline communication between law enforcement, election administrators, and state officials, Shapiro’s administration said.

Pennsylvania — and Philadelphia specifically — were a hotbed for conspiracies and election threats during the 2020 presidential election. This task force will communicate any viable threats to its member agencies so they can coordinate their response plans and protect voters’ access to the polls.

“It’s our responsibility to make sure that legal voters have access to the ballot box and that their votes are counted,” Shapiro, a Democrat, said in an interview last month about the task force. “That work has been underway for months and we’re going to continue to keep at it and ensure that we have, again, a free and fair, safe and secure election.”

Former Gov. Tom Wolf created an inter-agency election preparedness workgroup in 2018, and Shapiro expanded it to law enforcement and local officials.

The task force’s member agencies include: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Attorney’s offices across the state, the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office, the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, and more.

Schmidt, a Republican who served as a Philadelphia city commissioner during the 2020 presidential election, said the group will help ensure Pennsylvania has a safe and smooth election process this year.

“In recent years, we’ve seen bad-faith actors attempt to exploit these changes by spreading lies and baseless conspiracy theories, and attempting to delegitimize our safe, secure, and accurate elections,” Schmidt said in a statement Thursday. “This task force has been working together to develop and coordinate plans to combat this dangerous misinformation and continue providing all eligible voters with accurate, trusted election information.”