Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has said that one of his most important roles is to combat election threats in the Commonwealth in 2024.

To that end, Shapiro has created the Pennsylvania Election Threats Task Force, designed to share information and coordinate in the fight against threats to the election process, voter intimidation, and misinformation about voting and elections.

“Pennsylvania is the birthplace of American democracy, and we are working to continue defending Pennsylvanians’ fundamental freedoms and ensure we have a free, fair, safe, secure election this November,” said Shapiro in a statement.

His administration is rallying law enforcement agencies, civil defense officials and election administrators, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Pennsylvania State Police, the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and the Pennsylvania National Guard.

The Task Force is in response to the allegations of election fraud and failed lawsuits after the 2020 presidential election that saw Joe Biden defeat Donald Trump in the Commonwealth and in the Electoral College. Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt will head up the group.

“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,” said Schmidt. “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. Together with Governor Shapiro and our local, state, and federal partners, we will continue working to ensure we have another free and fair, safe and secure election.”

Trump continues to falsely claim that he won the state in 2020, including comments at a recent NRA event in Harrisburg.

“We ran twice, we won Pennsylvania twice,” Trump said. “We did much better the second time than we did the first time. It’s interesting, isn’t it?”

The 45th president has also called on supporters to “guard the vote” in Philadelphia and other major cities in swing states.

Shapiro served as the Commonwealth’s Attorney General in 2020 and played a central role in defending the state against Republican efforts to overturn the results.

“As Attorney General, I brought law enforcement leaders at every level together to ensure our elections remained free from fraud, interference, and intimidation here in Pennsylvania – and I made a commitment to continuing that work as Governor,” he said. “We take our responsibility as stewards of our democracy seriously and the Election Threats Task Force will ensure all levels of government are working together to combat misinformation, safeguard the rights of every citizen, and ensure this election is safe, secure, free, and fair.”

In addition to the creation of the Election Threats Task Force, the Shapiro Administration and the Department of State have also recently increased face-to-face public interactions, produced handouts that provide critical nonpartisan information on voting and election security, and created a fact-check webpage on vote.pa.gov.