PITTSBURGH (TNS) — In the years between presidential elections, research shows concerns about election safety, security and political violence tend to recede. And with them, efforts to find solutions often fade.

Now, a group of current and former Pennsylvania lawmakers from across the political spectrum is trying to change that.

On Monday, prominent political figures including former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett; Commonwealth Court Judge Michael Wojcik; Rob Beecher, policy director at the Pa. Department of State; and others will convene with experts at Duquesne University to explore how to keep the state’s election process safe, secure and accessible.

The forum will include panel discussions with commonwealth officials and will address topics such as misinformation and disinformation surrounding elections.

“Somehow we’ve got to restore that interest in how the [political] system works and how it really has worked pretty well over 250 years,” said former governor Corbett, a Republican who now teaches at Duquesne, in an interview with the Post-Gazette on Tuesday.

The event is hosted by Keep Our Republic, a nonprofit that aims to educate Americans about the electoral system and threats to Democratic values, and to “safeguard the pillars of American democracy,” according to its website.

Corbett, who sits on the group’s Pennsylvania Advisory Council, said ensuring peaceful elections requires politicians to come together across party lines.

“We need to get out a nonpartisan message explaining things,” he said. “Maybe with our credibility and with the bipartisan nature of this, they’ll believe [in the process].”

In recent years, threats against election workers and local officials have risen sharply across the country, according to research from the Bridging Divides Initiative at Princeton University, a nonpartisan research group that tracks and works to mitigate political violence.

In 2023, nearly half of reported threats or harassment targeting officials were motivated by elections or education, the data shows.

Nowhere is Keep Our Republic’s initiative more consequential than in swing-state Pennsylvania, which has become a focal point for election disputes, litigation and political campaigns. It has also seen political violence, including an attempted assassination of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump at the Butler Farm Show grounds in July, and an arson attack on Gov. Josh Shapiro’s residence in Harrisburg in April.

“Pennsylvania always is ground zero,” said Ari Mittleman, executive director of Keep Our Republic.

In March, the organization hosted a similar event at Dickinson College in Carlisle that focused on updating the state’s election code. During the forum, Pennsylvania Speaker of the House Joanna McClinton — the top House Democrat — signaled a willingness to compromise with Republicans by including stricter voter ID requirements, breaking with her party’s long-held position.

Those efforts will continue Monday at Duquesne, Mittleman said, with a goal of making the system easier to understand for voters.

“We know a lot of Pennsylvanians have a lot of questions about these themes,” he said. “There’s been a lot of changes, even pre-COVID-19 pandemic and mail-in voting.

“We just want Pennsylvanians to have faith and confidence that their counties are running their elections in a free, fair, transparent way.”