Texans are getting their first look at results of the state’s 2020 election audit. The initial findings, released today, hold few surprises.
On Friday, Texas Secretary of State John Scott released a progress report on Phase 1 of the state’s “full forensic audit” of the November 2020 presidential election.
The audit, announced in September, covers four large counties: Collin, Dallas, Harris, and Tarrant.
Together, the counties account for almost 3.9 million votes, about 35 percent of all votes cast statewide in the election.
Phase 1 of the audit included standard post-election reviews:
Partial manual counts of electronic voting system ballots, as required by state law in all counties using voting systems.
The four target counties reported vote-count discrepancies of 0-17 votes.
Election security assessments, required by state law in all Texas counties.
Results are confidential, but the four audited counties each received grant money for various “security enhancements.”
Voter registration list maintenance, required by federal and state law, to remove duplicate records and voters who are deceased, non-citizens, or ineligible felons.
Statewide, registration officials removed approximately 449,000 duplicates, 225,000 deceased voters, and 1,600 felons. More than 11,000 possible non-citizen records are being reviewed; 278 have been confirmed as non-citizens.
Identifying possible illegal votes cast.
Statewide, the audit found 509 voters who may have cast ballots in more than one state (60 in the four target counties) and 67 votes possibly cast in the names of deceased voters (17 in the four counties audited). A review of possible non-citizen voters is still underway.
Phase 2 of the audit will include a comprehensive review of election records and is expected to be completed by Spring 2022.
