Election Truth Alliance Lawsuit Against PA Secretary Schmidt

The Election Truth Alliance’s lawsuit against Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt is a federal civil rights case filed on November 6, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, it asks the court to order hand-count audits of 2024 presidential ballots in Allegheny, Cambria, and Erie counties to confirm that paper records match the machine totals.¹² All defendants have moved to dismiss, and as of June 12, 2026, the court had not ruled on those motions.

What the Lawsuit Asks the Court to Do

The ETA has stated it is not seeking to overturn the 2024 election or trigger a new one. The complaint asks for a hand count of physical ballots in the three defendant counties, reconciliation of those hand counts against the machine-generated tallies, and a judicial declaration that proper election procedures were not followed. It also seeks a court order compelling the counties to explain ballot discrepancies and voting-system software updates, court-mandated procedural safeguards for future elections, and an award of attorney and expert-witness fees.³

What the Plaintiffs Allege

The complaint divides into county-specific procedural claims and broader statistical arguments.

Cambria County

The ETA’s press release says Cambria County certified its Logic and Accuracy testing on September 28, 2024, but that subsequent official emails contradicted that certification. The county reportedly was unable to scan ballots in every precinct and had initially planned to duplicate about 35,000 ballots, ending up duplicating roughly 65,000. Official results showed 55,661 Election Day votes, more than 9,000 fewer than the number of duplicated ballots. According to the ETA, the final disposition of the extra ballots is unclear and the county has not produced chain-of-custody documentation.²

Statistical and Systemic Claims

Across all three counties, the ETA alleges that ES&S and Dominion voting systems produced “voting anomalies” when per-candidate totals were compared against registered-voter turnout, and that the potential scale of impact exceeds the roughly 120,000-vote margin in the Pennsylvania presidential race. The organization says the patterns mirror those documented in studies of elections in Russia and Bolivia.² Its own Pennsylvania analysis flags unusually high turnout in certain precincts of Philadelphia, Allegheny County, and Erie County, visible in Election Day data but not clearly in mail-in data, and cites Election Day bomb threats, machine failures, and congressional testimony from computer scientist J. Alex Halderman on ES&S and Dominion vulnerabilities.⁴ The ETA’s own site notes that “statistical anomalies, standing alone, are not proof of fraud, misconduct, or a changed outcome.”⁵

The individual plaintiffs assert standing on the grounds that they were denied access to public election records needed for research and accountability, and that alleged administrative failures deprived voters of their right to have their votes counted correctly.³

Who Is Suing and Who Is Being Sued

The plaintiffs are the Election Truth Alliance and eight individual co-plaintiffs: Nicholas Bruno, Jennifer Reese, Kimberly Minardi, Emily Craig-McCurdy, Lauren Hoffman, Christopher Mack, John Pecze, and Grace Hohman.⁶¹⁷

Where the Case Stands

The case was assigned to Judge Susan Paradise Baxter. Service was completed by mid-December 2025, and the parties stipulated to a January 5, 2026 response deadline. On that date, the defendants filed a coordinated set of motions to dismiss. The Allegheny County Board moved on failure-to-state-a-claim grounds. Schmidt moved on both jurisdictional and failure-to-state-a-claim grounds. The Erie and Cambria County boards joined both sets of motions, adopting the same arguments.¹

As of the most recent docket activity on June 12, 2026, the court had issued no opinion or order on standing, jurisdiction, or the merits. The case remains in the motion-practice stage.¹

The Statistical Evidence Behind the Suit

The ETA’s Pennsylvania analysis leans on a June 2025 working paper by Dr. Walter R. Mebane Jr., a University of Michigan professor of political science and statistics, titled “eforensics Analysis of the 2024 Presidential Election in Pennsylvania.” Mebane used precinct data supplied by ETA co-founder Lilli McGregor and the organization.⁸

Applied across 9,157 precincts, the model estimates that between roughly 210,000 and 225,000 statewide votes carry statistical markers the model categorizes as “eforensics-fraudulent,” a figure larger than the official 120,266-vote margin between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Mebane distinguishes between “malevolent distortions” of voter intent and “electors’ strategic behaviors,” which can produce similar signals. After accounting for strategic voting, he estimates the share of flagged votes likely attributable to actual malevolent distortion at roughly 25,375, which he calls “not negligible” against the margin but far smaller than the headline number. He points to Philadelphia and Huntingdon counties as areas where the signal is most statistically distinct, while cautioning that even those results may reflect “unknown admixtures” of fraud and strategic behavior.⁸

Who the Election Truth Alliance Is

The ETA was founded in December 2024 by Lilli McGregor, Nathan Taylor, and a third individual who goes by “Jive.” McGregor is Executive Director of Communications and Operations, Taylor is Executive Director of Public Engagement, and Jive is Executive Director of Strategy and Finance and the organization’s statutory officer.⁵ The group describes itself as a nonpartisan, grassroots nonprofit run entirely by unpaid volunteers. It is registered as a nonprofit corporation and a statutory charity but does not yet hold 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status; its IRS application was pending as of its last public disclosure.⁹

1
CourtListener. Election Truth Alliance v. Schmidt, 1:25-cv-00329
2
PR Newswire. Election Truth Alliance Files Lawsuit Pursuing Election Irregularities in Pennsylvania’s Western District
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Election Truth Alliance. Pennsylvania Legal Summary
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Election Truth Alliance. Pennsylvania Analysis
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Election Truth Alliance. Executive Team
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CourtListener. Election Truth Alliance v. Schmidt — Parties
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PBS NewsHour. Pennsylvania Election Official Responds as DOJ Sues State to Obtain Voter Data
8
University of Michigan. eforensics Analysis of the 2024 Presidential Election in Pennsylvania
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Election Truth Alliance. Frequently Asked Questions