Notary Public Underwriters Blog
What It Means To Be a "Public Official" As a Notary
- Details
- Published: October 29, 2014
Revised 9/16/24
Notaries are authorized to perform specific notarial acts and duties. Their powers are limited to performance in the state in which they are commissioned or appointed. They may only exercise their powers during the time frame specified in their current commission or appointment term. Notaries are commissioned or appointed by the Secretary of State or other designated official in the state where the notary resides (or in some states, the state where the notary works or maintains a second residence).
Notaries are useful and highly necessary public servants. As a notary public, you are an official, impartial witness and performer of a variety of fraud deterrent tasks. As both a notary and public official, you must uphold the oath you made to obey the law.
Upholding the law must always be the priority for notaries. Often friends, families, or colleagues may pressure you to perform acts that would cause you to violate your Notary oath, but such practices open up opportunities for fraud. Notaries stand between their customers and anyone else who would commit fraud by attempting to cause a fraudulent notarization to occur.
Additionally, a notary can never discriminate against a customer based on any reasoning. Race, sexuality, nationality, religion, etc. are not valid reasons for refusing to perform a lawful notarization for a customer. A notary must always remember that they are both a public official and an impartial third-party witness whose duties help protect their customers against ever present efforts to commit fraud.