Texas officials announced on Thursday that a full and comprehensive forensic audit of the 2020 election has begun in four counties within the Lone Star State.
In a news release put out by the Texas secretary of state office, it confirmed that, under existing state law, it has the authority to conduct a “full and comprehensive forensic audit of any election.” Furthermore, they’ve already started the process. The four counties being audited are some of the state’s largest counties including Dallas, Harris, Tarrant, and Collins.
The announcement came just hours after President Trump sent an open letter to Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, asking him to back a strong election integrity bill and initiate an election audit into the state’s 2020 election “irregularities.”
In the letter to Abbott, Trump wrote, “Despite my big win in Texas, I hear Texans want an election audit! You know your fellow Texans have big questions about the November 2020 Election.”
“Texas needs you to act now,” he continued, “Your Third Special Session is the perfect, and maybe last, opportunity to pass this audit bill.”
“Texans know voting fraud occurred in some of their counties,” Trump concluded. “Let’s get to the bottom of the 2020 Presidential Election Scam!”
Although Trump supporters and fellow Republicans are standing by the governor and his commitment to the audit, the state’s Democrat party isn’t as supportive. Texas State House Democratic Caucus Chairman Chris Turner tweeted, “Let me be the first to congratulate the disgraced former president, Donald Trump, on his apparently becoming the new governor of Texas. Pitiful yet predictable that Gov. Greg Abbott has capitulated to Trump yet again.”
It is currently unknown who will be conducting the state’s audit, but Texas’ Sec. of State said it believes that the Legislature will provide the necessary funds for the process.
Results from the 2020 election show that Trump won Texas by 5.5 percentage points. This is the slimmest margin of victory for a Republican presidential nominee in the past two decades.
The start of the Texas audit comes on the heels of other state’s 2020 election audits, most notably, the highly contested audit in Arizona which is being released to the public on Friday.
