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The Texas Secretary of State’s Office reportedly announced that the long-awaited 2020 election audit is scheduled to come to a close by the end of September, with the findings being released soon afterward.
“The statutory retention period for all election records is 22 months, which means after September 2022 all of the documents from the November 2020 can legally be discarded by the counties,” the office said in a statement according to WFAA. “Our agency’s forensic audit division plans to complete its work by the end of September, with the results likely released shortly thereafter.”
Last year, the Lone Star State announced it would conduct a full forensic audit of the 2020 election in Dallas, Harris, Tarrant, and Collin counties following President Donald Trump’s suggestion to Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, to order one.
In a statement announcing the audit, the secretary of state’s office stated that the “purpose of this audit is to ensure all Texas voters can have confidence in the elections systems” in the state and to “address any outstanding issues county election officials may face that undermines the integrity of our elections.”
The audit was split into two phases, with the first phase focusing on “testing voting machine accuracy, cybersecurity assessments, and identifying and removing ineligible voters” who voted in the election.
The findings of phase one, released in late 2021, revealed significant voting discrepancies across the state, including hundreds of potential duplicate cross-state ballots, noncitizens registered to vote, and multiple cases of ballots cast by dead voters, as previously reported by RSBN:
“According to the progress report, the audit found roughly 509 potential cross-state duplicate votes cast in the 2020 general election, meaning individuals may have voted in both Texas and another state. After finding 67 potential votes cast by deceased voters in Collin County, Dallas County, Harris County, and Tarrant County, an investigation is underway in the state.
A total of 11,737 potential noncitizens were found to have been registered to vote, the report further reveals. 327 records were reported in Collin County, 1,385 in Dallas County, 3,063 in Harris County, and 708 were reported in Tarrant County.”
In June, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton prosecuted a woman, Monica Mendez, who pleaded guilty to 26 felony counts of voter fraud, including “three counts of illegal voting, eight counts of election fraud, seven counts of assisting a voter to submit a ballot by mail, and eight counts of unlawful possession of a mail ballot.”
The Texas GOP also passed a resolution holding that Joe Biden was not legitimately elected president after watching “2000 Mules,” which uncovered a ballot harvesting scheme throughout the key states Biden needed to cruise to victory.
“We reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States,” the resolution states.
The state is currently conducting phase two of the audit which is a “comprehensive election records examination.” Its findings are to be released in September.