Francis Wilkinson for Bloomberg Opinion:

Ginsberg couldn’t have known then that the worst was yet to come. The fallout from Trump’s perfidy, including his attempted overthrow of the constitutional order, continues to rend the nation’s civic, political and moral fabric. While Cheney is out on the hustings, Ginsberg is busy doing his own repair work. He and Democratic election lawyer Bob Bauer, former President Barack Obama’s White House counsel and Ginsberg’s frequent foe, have joined forces to try to bolster faith in elections.

Their group, Pillars of the Community, connects civic leaders with election officials in electoral battlegrounds. “Our goal is to get community leaders from across the political spectrum together with election officials, to give those leaders, who might have questions or be skeptical about the election system, the chance to really kick the tires,” Ginsberg said in a telephone interview. “Faith leaders, veterans, first responders, business leaders, labor leaders is generally the group.”

In September, Pillars of the Community held an “Ask Me Anything” town hall in Arizona where community members could pose questions to Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican, who has been vilified by Trumpists for having confirmed the integrity of Arizona’s 2020 election.

A similar event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, earlier this month brought officials including Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein, another Republican, to the middle of the state. An October CBS News/YouGov poll found that 47% of Trump voters believe — or at least say they do — that there will be widespread fraud in the 2024 election. According to the poll, the two areas where Republicans most expect fraud are “major cities and urban areas” and “in minority communities” — in other words, places like Philadelphia.

“You know the allegation in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Georgia is going to be that the big urban jurisdiction is the problem,” Ginsberg said…