Ep. 6: Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt

The Ballot Box Briefing is a weekly segment on Sirius XM’s The Briefing, that examines the issues and storylines at the heart of running an efficient and accurate election. Guests include election administrators, local, state, and federal officials, cybersecurity experts, legal analysts, and members of BPC’s Democracy Program. 

In this episode, Pennsylvania’s top election official Al Schmidt talked about election security and counteracting election misinformation.

Edited Transcript

The following interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

STEVE SCULLY (SS): Let’s talk about the voting rules in Pennsylvania because they have changed over the last four to five years. What is the state of play today and how can people in the Commonwealth vote?

AL SCHMIDT (AS): They really have changed a lot in the past few years and for the better. For every vote that’s cast in person on Election Day, there is a voter verifiable paper ballot record that is used in not one but two audits done by the counties after every election. And since 2020, we have mail-in ballot voting or “no excuse” absentee ballot voting. That’s pretty new for Pennsylvania. It was passed by a Republican House and a Republican Senate and signed by a Democratic governor in the end of 2019, before COVID was even on the horizon. For that form of voting, there is a voter verifiable paper ballot that’s used in two audits after every election. Elections in Pennsylvania have never been more accessible, more safe, or more secure.

SS: I can say this because I grew up in Pennsylvania: the laws in the state have often been quite restrictive. What led to the change? Was it primarily COVID, or were there other political factors?

AS: The change happened before COVID was even really a thing here. It was part of an election reform package that changed voting in Pennsylvania in a number of ways. Prior to 2020, voters had the option to vote straight ticket–you could go in and just push a button for straight Democratic or straight Republican or whatever else you choose. That was eliminated as part of that election reform package, and the package changed a number of other things, as well. But the biggest change was bringing mail-in ballot voting to Pennsylvania.

SS: We should point out you’re a Republican. I mention that because in 2020, we heard a lot of complaints from then-President Donald Trump that the election was stolen. He still continues today to say the election was stolen. Is there any evidence that it was?

AS: No, not at all. And I would also add that the election in Pennsylvania was not even close. It was decided by more than 80,000 votes. There’s been no shortage of paranoid fantasies about how the election was stolen in Pennsylvania, but the courts have a kind of “put up or shut up” effect to them. If people were aware of any or had any evidence of any sort of widespread voter fraud in Pennsylvania in 2020, there was plenty of opportunity to bring that and it just didn’t materialize because it was categorically untrue.

I was an elected Republican Commissioner in Philadelphia for ten years. I took voter fraud very seriously then, as I do right now. I think the integrity of our electoral process is something that requires constant vigilance. But at the end of the day, it has to have some basis in fact, and not just be about not wanting to admit defeat.

SS: We talked to a colleague who you know well from Georgia—another Republican, Brad Raffensperger—who recounted what it was like when Donald Trump called him in January of 2021 to refute the vote totals in Georgia. He said his response was simply to try to deal with the facts. You were also under heavy pressure from the President and the Trump campaign. You were being attacked on social media. How did you respond?

AS: The pressure really wasn’t that much of a thing. I mean, you’re counting votes, you’re scrutinizing the integrity of the process and all the rest—whatever political or other consequences that might come your way are of no consequence. They were of no consequence to me, and they were no consequence to Secretary Raffensberger who has since won reelection in Georgia. It really just comes down to the facts and doing the right thing. No amount of political pressure would have changed that.

SS: Pennsylvania has a Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, and he appointed you as the Secretary of the Commonwealth. Why?

AS: For a couple of reasons, as I understand it. First, my experience running elections for more than ten years in Pennsylvania’s largest county. Second, when elections are done best, they’re done in either a bipartisan or nonpartisan way. The governor is a Democrat, I’m a Republican, and the Department of State is nonpartisan and nonpolitical. We work for the taxpayers, and we work for the voters. Between that election experience in the past and the Governor’s commitment to free and fair elections he made the decision to appoint me, and I was confirmed later by our Republican State Senate.

SS: There is no evidence that there were any shenanigans or massive wrongdoing that would have overturned the 2020 election. But there still is that perception, especially among Republicans according to every poll and every metric, and “perception is reality” as you pointed out. As you look ahead at November and this presidential election, what can you do in Pennsylvania and what can other states do to ensure that when the results come in, people trust those numbers?

AS: You’re right Steve, and that’s been one of the bigger frustrations. We’ve seen how persistent those beliefs that the election was stolen or rigged in some way are. A significant number of Americans and Pennsylvanians believe that, despite it having no basis in fact. What we can do and what our partners can do at the federal, state, and local level is make sure we can be a trusted source of information. As we said at the start of this conversation, elections have changed a lot, and it is no wonder some people have questions. We need to do our part when it comes to voter education to let people know that there are safeguards in place throughout the entire system to ensure its integrity, and that the outcome is free and fair and safe and secure. We have an important role to play and our county partners who really run elections in Pennsylvania at the county level—all 67 of them—have an important role to play in making sure elections are run fairly and voters can have access to reliable, nonpartisan, non-political information.

SS: If there is one thing that you wish people understood or knew about elections, what would that be?

AS: That elections are really run by your neighbors and by your friends. The people who show up at that polling place are volunteering in Pennsylvania for more than 13 hours, two days a year for the primary election and general election. And there are safeguards in the process, both at the precinct level where in-person voting takes place, and for mail-in ballot voting as well. As I mentioned before, those votes are not only tabulated but audited in not one but two elections conducted at the county level after every election to make sure the results are accurate. Our elections have never been more safe and secure, so it’s certainly frustrating seeing the degree of mistrust in election results when it has no basis in fact.

SS: When you say the results are audited, how does it work in Pennsylvania? Clearly partisans on the left or the right, Democrat and Republican, can watch that process.

AS: So much of that process is open to the public. The testing of all of the in-person voting systems that is conducted at the county level is open to the public and representatives of the campaigns. They can observe it to make sure that all the devices are programmed accurately and that the voter selection matches the votes that are tabulated in what’s called logic and accuracy testing prior to Election Day.

In the polling place, you also have poll watchers in Pennsylvania that can watch on behalf of parties and on behalf of candidates. They can be in the polling place for every moment that polling place is open and voting is taking place as well as when the devices are closed down at the end of the day and the results are printed out and returned to the Board of Elections.

For the mail-in ballot process, every step of that canvassing – from the review of the outer envelope to the opening of the outer envelope and the extraction of the secrecy envelope and the extraction of the ballot and the counting of those votes – is also open to observers at every county in Pennsylvania. The whole process is transparent from beginning to end.