Texas Sec of State reveals ‘forensic audit’ of 2020 election in four largest counties has ‘already begun’

With the audit of Arizona’s Maricopa County 2020 election results completed, Democrats and the media may have assumed that challenges to the prior election’s reported outcomes at the state level were a thing of the past.

Hold on a minute, though, said the Texas Secretary of State’s Office Thursday, as it announced that a “full forensic audit” of the 2020 election results in the state’s four largest counties was already underway, CBSDFW reported.

Former President Donald Trump had defeated current President Joe Biden in the state of Texas, albeit perhaps not in the particular counties being audited, and while it remains unclear exactly what the announced audits will entail, odds are that it will seek to discover and expose any sort of fraud or other electoral shenanigans that may have occurred.

Texas already at it

It was on Thursday that a brief statement was released by Sam Taylor, spokesman for the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, that audits had already been launched in four major Texas counties.

“Under existing Texas laws, the Secretary of State has the authority to conduct a full and comprehensive forensic audit of any election and has already begun the process in Texas’ two largest Democrat counties and two largest Republican counties — Dallas, Harris, Tarrant, and Collin — for the 2020 election,” Taylor said. “We anticipate the Legislature will provide funds for this purpose.”

Interestingly enough, that announcement came just a short while after former President Trump had published an open letter to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) that, in part, called for a full review and “Forensic Audit of the 2020 Election” in that state in order to restore confidence in voters of the integrity of the electoral system.

Trump supports it

CBSDFW reported that Trump’s letter to Abbott urged the governor to express his support for a piece of legislation known as HB 16, which would provide for a complete review of the 2020 election results and allow for full forensic audits of future elections.

Ironically, the effort that Trump urged Abbott to support was already strongly backed by one of the governor’s chief GOP primary rivals, Republican state Sen. Don Huffines, who was quick to tout the additional backing of the audit effort by Trump.

“Texans deserve to have confidence in their elections, but Greg Abbott is in the way,” Huffines said in a statement, according to CBSDFW. “He’s been in charge of our elections for 20 years but voter confidence in the integrity of our system is at an all time low. What is Greg Abbott afraid of?”

Casting aspersions

Perhaps adding more intrigue to the situation, the Texas Tribune reported that it was only a matter of hours later after Trump’s letter was issued that the Texas Secretary of State’s Office — which currently has no confirmed or acting secretary, by the way — released its statement noting that audits were already underway in the four largest counties.

The liberal-leaning outlet was quick to point out that Texas election officials had previously bragged about how Texas elections had been “smooth and secure” in 2020 and there was no evidence of widespread abuse or fraud, and highlighted Democratic critics of both the calls for audits and Gov. Abbott himself.

The clear insinuation from the Tribune and Abbott’s critics was that the governor caved under pressure from Trump and ordered the audits, but given that the released statement from the Secretary’s Office clearly stated that the audits had “already begun,” the conspiratorial allegation has no real basis of fact to support it.

The post Texas Sec of State reveals ‘forensic audit’ of 2020 election in four largest counties has ‘already begun’ first appeared on Conservative Institute.