Republicans in one of the most conservative counties in Texas are calling on Gov. Greg Abbott to audit the November 2020 general election.
On October 19, members of the Collin County Republican Party’s executive committee adopted a resolution demanding Abbott “act with immediate effect to perform a FULL forensic audit of the 2020 Elections, not later than the 1st day of November,” adding he should call a special session of the Texas Legislature if necessary.
As of today, Abbott hasn’t responded.
The resolution calls for an independent third-party audit as described in House Bill 17 by State Rep. Steve Toth (R–The Woodlands):
ONLY a thorough forensic audit, as outlined in HB17, of each county with a population of 415,000 or more, will suffice to answer to the integrity of our elections.
The executive committee is made up of precinct chairs—volunteers typically elected by Republican voters to represent each voting precinct in the county when conducting party business.
Committee members said an audit is needed to restore trust and confidence in the election process.
Grassroots Republicans in neighboring Tarrant County are considering similar action.
On November 4, Tarrant’s Republican Party executive committee members are set to vote on a resolution asking Abbott for a full and complete independent forensic audit of the county’s November 2020 election.
Both Collin County Elections Administrator Bruce Sherbet and Tarrant County Elections Administrator Heider Garcia told Texas Scorecard in August they have no objections to any audit conducted in accordance with state laws.
Garcia said his office welcomes the opportunity to provide transparency to the public and invited voters to visit and ask questions.
Former Tarrant GOP Chair Tim O’Hare, who is running for Tarrant County judge in the 2022 Republican primary, said last week that if elected, he’d work to create an “Election Integrity Officer” position that would be responsible for overseeing election processes in the county:
The Election Integrity Officer will also seek to find and uncover election fraud. Any election fraud discovered by the Election Integrity Officer would be reported to the Sheriff and the District Attorney and prosecuted as the DA sees fit.
“We need to take every precaution when it comes to election integrity because guarding the security of our ballot box and guaranteeing the legitimacy of our elections is fundamental to preserving a free society,” O’Hare said.
Collin and Tarrant are among four counties already targeted for audits by the Texas Secretary of State’s office; the other two are Democrat-controlled Dallas and Harris.
Newly appointed Secretary of State John Scott said in an interview last week his top priority is completing the internal audits.
Scott said the reviews underway now are more thorough than standard post-election audits usually performed by the SOS and go much further than any legislative proposal.
Grassroots Republicans aren’t satisfied.
Collin County GOP said the state’s current efforts are “not adequate to create confidence and answer all questions related to election integrity and the possibility of election fraud from the 2020 elections.”
Every partisan elected office in Collin County is held by a Republican. In November 2020, Donald Trump won Collin with 52 percent of the vote. In Tarrant, Joe Biden edged out Trump by 1,800 votes. By comparison, the Libertarian candidate received more than 10,000 votes, the Green Party got 2,617 votes, and 4,232 ballots contained no vote for president.
