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• Slug: News21-Fractured-Rebuilding Trust. 2,712 words. Note: An abridged version of 1,028 words is also available.
• With 9 photos.

By Romie Avivi Stuhl
News21

Note: This story has strong Arizona ties.

WOODRUFF, Wis. – For two and a half hours on a rainy Thursday evening, Kathy Bernier did what she’s spent the past year doing: trying to restore faith in America’s electoral systems – and, along with it, faith in democracy. It was all part of her work as Wisconsin state director of Keep Our Republic, one of several initiatives nationwide working to rebuild public trust in elections. The initiatives range from cross-partisan groups working in the battleground states of Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan and Wisconsin to off-the-record meetings of conservatives in Republican strongholds such as Utah, Indiana and Texas. Don Henninger, the Republican co-lead of another Carter Center network, the Arizona Democracy Resilience Network, puts it this way: “It’s not an aisle anymore. It’s a canyon.”