Phase one of a forensic audit of the 2020 General Election in the State of Texas is complete, and already numerous issues with voter registration rolls have been uncovered. Among those issues, as many as 11,737 non-citizens may have been registered to vote statewide.
The audit centered on four urban Texas Counties — Collin, Dallas, Harris, and Tarrant — which represent over a third of Texas’ population.
Election officials were quick to point out that — so far — the audit has produced nothing that may have affected the outcome of the 2020 election. Donald Trump carried the state by just over 5.5 percentage points.
“Generally speaking, nothing was found on such a large scale that could have altered any election,” Sam Taylor, assistant secretary of state for communications, told The Epoch Times.
And despite finding non-citizens registered to vote, 67 potential votes in the names of deceased people and a possible 509 cases of a voter voting in Texas as well as another state, officials in Texas cautioned that the preliminary results were no reason for alarm.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything too far out of the ordinary with respect to the information that’s provided,” said Remi Garza, president of the Texas Association of Election Administrators. “I hope nobody draws any strong conclusions one way or the other with respect to the information that’s been provided. I think it’s just very straightforward, very factual and will ultimately play a part in the final conclusions that are drawn once the second phase is completed.”
Considering its location on the southern border, possibly the most troublesome finding in the audit’s progress report is the number on non-citizens found to be on the voting rolls.
“Beginning in September of 2021, the SOS (secretary of state) implemented a comparative process utilizing DPS (Department of Public Safety) citizenship data pursuant to a 2019 settlement agreement. Since that time, 11,737 possible non-U.S. citizen voter records have been sent to county registrars for review statewide,” the preliminary report declared.
And although counties are in the process of investigating these cases, just under 20 percent of the possible illegal registrations have been removed thus far.
“Of the 11,737 records, 278 voting records have been cancelled due to confirmation of non-U.S. citizenship by the county. Additionally, 2,049 voter records have been cancelled for failure to respond to a notice from the county voter registrar requesting documentation of proof of citizenship. Overall, 2,327 voting records have been removed from the active statewide voter registration list as a result of this agreed-upon process, which has now been codified into state law.”
It sounds as if the investigators are counting on those who may be illegally registered to vote to fess up by providing (or not providing) proof of their citizenship to the counties. That’s one way to do it but it sounds as if it might take awhile.
On December 6, Scott shared his hopes for the audit.
“What we’re trying to do is make sure there’s a little more confidence in the system, in the election integrity,” Scott said in an interview with NBC 5 Dallas-Ft. Worth. “This is one of the hopes of the audit is to show folks it is very safe — it is secure. Your vote does count when you cast it, and where we find issues, we’re going to address those issues.”
The second phase of the audit is set to begin early in the new year and will focus on a complete examination of election records in order to “to ensure election administration procedures were properly followed,” according to a document released by the state in September. Among the records set to be examined are Chain of Custody forms that document the seals on the ballot boxes; Chain of Custody delivery and pickup of equipment at voting sites; Audit Logs from applicable Voting System Devices; Ballot and Seal Certificates; and Receipts of Sealed Early Voting Ballot Boxes.
Texas, with its new voting law and the summertime revolt of Democrat lawmakers who left the state for two months to block the vote on that bill, has been on the forefront of election integrity efforts in the United States.
