Al Schmidt Failed to Protect the Vote in Pennsylvania. We’re Filing Against His Bond.

And you can too.

First, let’s address an uncomfortable truth: over the last fifty-plus years, many elected officials have forgotten what it means to represent the American people—and the American people, in turn, have forgotten that the first and most important duty of elected officials is to protect them.

Need an example of elected officials actively harming constituents? Look no further than the “Big Beautiful Bill.”

Which is why we’re here. Because they failed to protect us. And they failed to protect our vote. For decades.

And 2024 is the election we can “do something” about.

What Is a Public Official Bond?

Most Americans have never heard of public official bonds, despite the fact that many government officials across the United States are required to carry them as a condition of holding office.

In simple terms, a public official bond is a financial guarantee intended to help ensure an official faithfully performs the duties of their office in accordance with the law.

Issued by surety companies, these bonds exist to protect the public against certain forms of misconduct, negligence, malfeasance, or failure to perform statutory responsibilities.

At a time of historically low trust in public institutions, Americans are beginning to ask an important question: What lawful remedies exist when citizens believe public duties were neglected?

This piece is not legal advice, nor is it a call for harassment, intimidation, or frivolous filings against public officials. Rather, it is an overview of existing civic accountability mechanisms, including public records requests, administrative complaints, litigation pathways, and the role public official bonds may play within that framework.

Democracy depends not only on elections, but on an informed citizenry willing to understand how government systems actually function. We’re starting with Pennsylvania, but these mechanisms exist in every state.

And contrary to popular belief, civic participation does not begin and end at the ballot box.

A public official bond generally involves three parties:

• The public official (“principal”)

• The surety company issuing the bond (“surety”)

• The government entity or public being protected (“obligee”)

The purpose of the bond is to create financial accountability if an official fails to faithfully perform the duties required by law.

Depending on the jurisdiction and office, these bonds may apply to:

• Secretaries of state

• County commissioners

• Controllers

• Treasurers

• Clerks

• Election officials

• Tax assessors

• Notaries

• Other public administrators

Bond-related inquiries generally require evidence tied to statutory duties, financial harm, misconduct, or failure to faithfully perform official responsibilities.

Historically, successful accountability efforts have depended on evidence, documentation, and statutory grounding—all of which we have.

Pennsylvania: Election Administration and Public Accountability

In Pennsylvania, election administration is divided between state oversight and county-level administration.

The Secretary of the Commonwealth serves as Pennsylvania’s chief election official and is responsible for overseeing statewide election administration, certification guidance, and compliance with state and federal election laws.

Which brings us to why we’re filing against Al Schmidt’s bond.

Shortly after polls closed, Centre County officials disclosed that two of the county’s three mail-in ballot tabulators malfunctioned, leaving more than 13,401 ballots uncounted in the initial results. With those ballots missing, Centre County which typically goes blue, went red—with Trump and GOP Senate candidate McCormick “winning.”

But this was just the first failure in a line of many.

Just before 7 PM, a bomb threat was called into the Willowbank Building, where mail-in ballots were stored and being processed. The building was evacuated. During that evacuation, two things happened that CISA and CIS both classify as chain-of-custody breaches:

1. Election equipment and ballots were left unsecured inside without sworn election personnel present

2. Mail ballots continued being accepted outside, with no standard custody protocols

Both incidents should have triggered a full forensic audit. Instead, they were swept under the rug. And the night got worse: when staff returned inside, the tabulators still would not upload results into the county’s election software.

As reported by the election and IT staff, the data was being successfully exported from mail ballot scanners, but the mail-in ballot data was not being recognized by election software when uploaded. Officials announced shortly after midnight that they would need to rescan 13,401 ballots the next day.

In light of the statistical absurdity we witnessed on election night, we’d soon find ourselves asking another question: why was Pennsylvania targeted with over 30 bomb threats from accounts linked to Russian email domains.

And since we’re in Pennsylvania, we may as well revisit the other issues—such as the fact that voting equipment in at least one county was never properly tested or certified, and they left a paper trail. ES&S was made aware of this oversight, and yet the equipment was fraudulently approved for use by Maryann Dillon, the now-retired Director of Elections in Cambria County.

And when over 45,000 citizens requested a third-party hand-count audit, Al Schmidt told them to kick rocks. So the Election Truth Alliance filed a lawsuit.

To recap, the state of Pennsylvania:

• Lied about malfunctions

• Lied about certifying equipment

• Allowed a flipped result

• Violated its own reporting laws

• Reported over 30 Russian bomb threats

• Had documented chain-of-custody breaches

• Denied a citizen-led third-party hand-count audit

As it turns out, roughly 30% of Pennsylvania counties reported equipment errors, but we’ll never know if the mail-in ballot “glitch” slipped under the radar in other counties because despite the bomb threats, equipment malfunctions, and chain of custody breaches, Pennsylvania did not conduct a recount.

Pennsylvania law contains oath and bonding requirements for certain categories of public officials, though the precise application varies by office and statutory authority.

Because the Secretary is an appointed department head, the office falls squarely under the jurisdiction of the Governor’s Executive Board pursuant to 71 P.S. § 79 and is covered under the master blanket bond purchased from a private insurer.

We believe Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt failed to protect the vote on November 5, 2024, resulting in harm to the public. As a result, we are filing claims against his bond.

And you can too.

We’ve included a customizable template letter at the end of this piece that you can use to request bond information from Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt’s office or from any other bonded public official.

Remember, paperwork is the point. Call their offices. Send them emails. Relentlessly. Make them give you answers.

What Citizens Can Legally Do

Take a page from the blueprint: the Civil Rights Movement succeeded because it combined moral clarity, disciplined organization, local leadership, political education, mutual aid, legal strategy, media strategy, and sustained pressure all at the same time.

A lot of people remember the speeches and protests. What often gets forgotten is the infrastructure underneath them. The movements that changed America were not spontaneous emotional uprisings alone—they were deeply organized ecosystems.

For Americans frustrated by institutional inaction or declining public trust, history offers an important lesson: Lasting reform movements rarely succeed through one dramatic moment. They succeed through sustained, organized, lawful civic participation.

The civil rights movement, labor movement, anti-corruption campaigns, and voting rights struggles all understood this principle well: systems rarely respond to one loud voice, but they do respond to sustained public pressure backed by documentation and collective action.

Public official bonds are a part of that broader conversation.

And we can take them down with millions of paper cuts.

Relevant Pennsylvania Statutes and Resources

Pennsylvania law contains oath and bonding requirements for certain categories of public officials, though the precise application varies by office and statutory authority.

Unlike in states where the Secretary of State is an elected position, Pennsylvania’s Secretary of the Commonwealth is appointed by the Governor and serves as the head of an executive administrative department.

The Secretary of the Commonwealth serves as Pennsylvania’s chief election official and oversees the administration of elections statewide through the Department of State.

Note: When asked why we aren’t demanding more from Governor Josh Shapiro and holding his feet to the proverbial fire, our answer is simple: he literally put a Republican in charge of elections in Pennsylvania. That’s why.

Because the Secretary is an appointed department head, the office falls squarely under the jurisdiction of the Governor’s Executive Board pursuant to 71 P.S. § 79 and is covered under the master blanket bond purchased from a private insurer.

The Legal Requirement

• Official Security Requirements: Pennsylvania law requires many public officials to carry official security, including bonds, blanket bonds, or crime-fidelity insurance policies that protect the public against misconduct or failure to faithfully perform official duties.

• Faithful Performance Standard: Under 16 Pa. C.S. § 1124, covered public officials must have “faithful performance of duty” coverage before exercising the powers of their office.

• Bound by Ethical Standards: Public officials are bound by the Pennsylvania Constitution and the Public Official and Employee Ethics Act, which requires honesty, transparency, and service in the public interest.

• Public Right to Request Information: Citizens may request records related to official bonds or other public-official security instruments through Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law or directly from the agency maintaining those records.

Given what we know about the election protocol breaches in 2024 and the use of fake county vote banks across the swing states and Florida, we cannot reasonably expect the midterms to produce a “free and fair” result.

Michigan: Election Administration and Public Accountability

Which brings us to Michigan and the 2024 election.

Michigan entered 2024 with lingering concerns over illegal access to election equipment by Trump-aligned operatives following the 2020 election. State officials had warned clerks about chain-of-custody breaches involving unauthorized access to voting equipment.

They removed the voting equipment and took it to hotels for unauthorized “testing,” creating unprecedented election-security concerns.

Separately, election-security experts continued warning about broader vulnerabilities in U.S. voting infrastructure, including systems used in Michigan. Dr. J. Alex Halderman presented longstanding vulnerabilities in ballot scanners and voting equipment, noting that many known weaknesses could not realistically be patched before Election Day 2024.

Then, on Election Night at 11:48 p.m. ET, the world watched as 989,389 votes for Vice President Kamala Harris disappeared in Michigan—along with her 966,169-vote lead over Donald Trump.

Almost a million votes. Poof. Gone.

But the vote disappearances didn’t end there.

The day after the election, at 1:47 p.m. ET on November 6, an additional 257,346 votes were removed from the presidential race, according to The Washington Post.

Voting is an additive process, yet Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office offered no explanation for either discrepancy.

And according to a 2025 bomb-threat tracker published by the Brennan Center for Justice, Michigan counties that received fake Russian bomb threats on November 5, 2024 included:

• Genesee County

• Saginaw County

• Washtenaw County

• Wayne County

Yet despite the breached 2020 equipment remaining in place, warnings from election-security experts about longstanding vulnerabilities, more than a million votes disappearing from the system, and fake Russian bomb threats designed to disrupt the election process and ballot chain of custody, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson did not seek investigations from the state attorney general or feel the need to pursue a recount.

Which is why we’re filing against her bond, and you can too.

Relevant Michigan Statutes and Resources

Michigan operates under a highly decentralized election system in which local clerks, county canvassing boards, and the Michigan Secretary of State all play distinct roles.

Michigan also requires certain public officials to take constitutional oaths and, in some cases, maintain bonds tied to the faithful performance of their duties.

In this case, Michigan law explicitly requires Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to maintain an official surety bond as a condition of holding office.

The Legal Requirement

• Statutory Mandate: According to Michigan Compiled Law § 168.80, every person elected as Secretary of State must take the constitutional oath and “shall give bond in the amount and manner prescribed by law.”

• Additionally, under Michigan Compiled Laws § 15.51, originally enacted through Act 16 of 1895, both the Secretary of State and Deputy Secretary of State are legally required to provide a bond to the people of the State of Michigan.

• The Statutory Amount: The statute sets the Secretary of State’s personal bond at $25,000.

• Approval: The bond must be approved by both the State Treasurer and the Attorney General.

• Filing and Custody Exception: While standard state officials file their official bonds directly with the Secretary of State’s office, the law carves out an exception for the Secretary of State to avoid a conflict of interest. The Secretary of State’s personal official bond must instead be deposited with and kept by the Attorney General or the State Treasurer.

Again, read to the end for a customizable template that you can use to request bond information from Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office or any other bonded public official.

Action vs. Performative Outrage

Watch the above video, courtesy of Alabama Senator Merika Coleman: As tornado warnings blared and the building literally flooded, Alabama lawmakers still pushed ahead with the vote on SB1, redrawing congressional maps to force Black legislators out of office.

Since the corrupt Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act, southern states are moving with a quickness we’ve never seen to ensure Black legislators are removed from Congress.

Risking life and limb in a flooded building to push through that vote.

As stated in previous articles, we cannot afford to ignore the truth about our compromised election system any longer. We will never have justice or freedom without truth; they are not just correlated, they are codependent.

Again, the Civil Rights Movement gave us the blueprint. Rooted in organization and meaningful action, it succeeded in achieving hard-fought victories and necessary change.

Some of the biggest issues we face right now are the lack of organization and a compromised media.

We have “influencers” rage-baiting their audiences with Trump’s atrocity du jour for clicks and engagement so they can feed the algorithm and get paid, instead of organizing and telling the truth about stolen elections. Because Trump is the cash cow that not only pays the bills, but elevates some of these folks to yachts.

We need action, not outrage, to organize and bring this illegitimate regime down.

If you aren’t following Win With Black Women, they’re doing much of the heavy lifting and provide excellent resources for getting involved. The American Civil Liberties Union and Black Voters Matter are also excellent organizations that host action-based events which make a real difference.

Americans do not need permission to participate in democracy beyond Election Day. Democracy is not a ceremony we engage in every four years, but a system that requires an informed and engaged citizenry every single day.

And somewhere along the way, perhaps we forgot that.

We have the right to ask questions.
We have the right to request records.
We have the right to organize peacefully.
We have the right to pursue lawful remedies when we believe public duties were neglected.

Understanding how public accountability systems function—including official bonds—is part of an informed citizenry.

So we’re filing against their bonds, and you can too. Or against any other state-level official who looked the other way as the 2024 election was stolen.

Again: millions of paper cuts. “Good trouble.”

All Roads Lead To the South, May 16, 2026.

Action Items

Michigan
Contact Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office.
Call: 517-335-2436
Email: secretary@michigan.gov

Pennsylvania
Contact Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt.
Call: 717-787-6458
Email: ra-elections@pa.gov

We’re sending our letters to all swing states and Florida. Why? Millions of paper cuts. In a swing state and want to do the same? Below is a template letter you can use to request bond information for the official you intend to file against:

[Your Name]

[Your Address]

[City, State ZIP]

[Email Address]

[Date]

RE: Request for Public Official Bond Information

To Whom It May Concern,

Pursuant to applicable public records laws and in the interest of public transparency, I am requesting information regarding any public official bond, surety bond, blanket bond, fidelity coverage, or related financial security instrument associated with the office of [TITLE/OFFICE].

Specifically, I respectfully request copies of, or access to, the following records:

• The current bond or coverage documentation associated with the office

• The name of the surety or insurance provider

• Bond number(s), where releasable under law

• Coverage limits and effective dates

• Statutory authority requiring such bond or coverage

• Any publicly available claim procedures related to the bond

• Any applicable oath-of-office documentation associated with the office

If any portion of this request is denied, please cite the specific statutory exemption supporting the denial.

If responsive records are available electronically, I request they be provided in digital format where possible.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

We have six months before the midterms.

The time for action is now.

Once again, thank you for supporting independent journalism and standing with us in this fight. We’ve been able to continue this work for the last eighteen months because of you.

And hold on to your hope. This is not left vs. right—it’s all of us vs. the Epstein class. Again, we don’t need permission to enforce the Constitution. We just need courage.

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