On Sept. 23, the Texas secretary of state’s office announced the “full forensic audit” of the 2020 general election, just hours after President Donald Trump demanded it. At that time, the secretary of state and Gov. Greg Abbott caused a ruckus around the audit, spreading the news through every platform.
In an interview with Fox News host Chris Wallace, Abbott defends the decision to pursue an audit saying “ We have a responsibility to ensure the integrity and confidence in the elections in the state of Texas.”
In contrast to September, Abbott and the secretary of state didn’t cause a lot of commotion now that they have their first batch of results from the review into the 2020 general election. Instead, they just dropped the news from the audit on New Year’s Eve, and according to The Dallas Morning News, holidays are reserved for bad news.
Why is it not getting the traction it deserves? After all, the multimillion-dollar audit brought good news, confirming that Texas held free and fair elections.
The first phase of the audit targeted four counties and showed very few issues. In Dallas, Collin, Tarrant, and Harris there was only a difference of 17 votes between manual and electronic counts. For that, Collin County officials had a clear explanation, according to the secretary of state’s progress report.
According to The Dallas Morning News, in 2021 Republican state lawmakers redirected $4 million from the state prison budget to the office of the secretary of state to help pay for election audits.
In the statewide review which was a part of the first phase of the 2020 election audit, they identified 509 instances where individuals may have cast ballots in Texas and 67 possible cases of votes cast on behalf of dead voters. That was among 11.3 million votes cast.
The state audit will continue this year, with officials saying it will look at whether election procedures in 2020 were properly followed.
Maybe their silence can be interpreted as anxiousness now that they know it will be difficult to justify any other “election integrity” stunts.
