With election denialism at an all-time high, it makes one wonder what the future holds for this 247-year-old experiment we call a democracy.

One group thinks it has an answer. And it involves getting back to the future.

Keep Our Republic (KOR) is a non-partisan civic action organization dedicated to protecting a republic of laws and strengthening the checks and balances of our democratic electoral system.

Ari Mittleman, executive director and a former staffer to Sen. Bob Casey, said it will involve events like continuing legal education courses for Pennsylvania lawyers on the state’s standards for casting, processing and tabulating the vote; and conversations with county election administrators on the most common misconceptions they face.

Keep Our Republic’s starting point is that elections systems still function at a high level. But, in the wake of far-flung efforts to debunk it following 2020, it believes, it must be protected against unwarranted attacks.

In rolling out the Pennsylvania effort at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, KOR leaders stressed their effort is not aimed at endorsing specific candidates or policy issues.

Rather, they will focus on making sure the states have a well-informed corps of community and civic leaders who can serve as trusted voices for their friends, neighbors and community members on questions like the reliability of modern voting systems, or the ballot security measures.

The organization feels that the pendulum has swung too far to the right for Republicans. And it’s not thrilled about the rise of progressivism on the other side and calling for immediate, drastic change.

Former chair of the Montgomery County Republican Committee, Ken Davis, says that Republicans used to “stand for free enterprise, private property rights, and limited government, especially as it relates to the division of power between the federal government and the states. The whole issue comes down to having a consistent set of beliefs whether it is conservative or liberal. And conservatives today do not have that certain set of beliefs and I think it’s hard to align yourself with people who are all over the lot.”

Anne Womble, former chair of the Lancaster County GOP, says “a conservative is cautious about wholesale, radical, sudden change and prefers reforms that happen through compromise and at a prudent pace. A conservative also believes that good government requires participation of people of sound moral judgment. A conservative elevates virtue over liberty, as the most important feature of the body politic.

“I believe a conservative believes that bad ideas that are propagated in the media should be counteracted not with bans and laws, preventing people from speaking their minds. They should be counteracted with better ideas.”

Former Rep. Charlie Dent commented that the country has to return to accepting outcomes of its decisions, whether that be an election or a judicial outcome.

“With elections, “sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But if you lose, you have to come back and figure out how to win next time. I’ve wasted a lot of my breath on CNN and elsewhere trying to explain that the election in Pennsylvania in 2020 was not stolen.

“Riddle me this – how did Trump lose by 81,000 votes while two Republicans (Auditor General Tim DeFoor and Treasurer Stacy Garrity) won. If Democrats stole the election in Philadelphia, why wouldn’t they steal it all? There was only one county in PA where Trump did marginally better in 2020 than 2016 – that was Philadelphia County. In every other county, Trump did marginally worse.

To this trio, Republicans have to shed their angry, non-compromising side and get back to advancing traditional conservative values. And that starts with rejecting the former president.

“A Trump endorsement proved to be very damaging all across the country, ” said Dent. “Keri Lake, Tudor Dixon, Doug Mastriano – those candidates all did terribly in states they should have won.

“All Trump endorsed candidates underperformed. You want to stay a million miles away from the Trump endorsement. Sure it might help you with your base. It might help shore up a few voted in your primary, but that endorsement will turn off a lot of college-educated suburban voters, especially women – a constituency Republicans desperately need to win.

“Ask Doug Mastriano how the endorsement worked out for him.”

The question for Pennsylvania Republicans as well as GOP voters nationwide seems to be: How likely is it that Trump will do better with persuadable voters than his 2020 loss when you toss January 6, a 34-count Manhattan indictment and possible federal indictments into the mix?