The Texas Secretary of State released preliminary findings on an audit of election results ordered earlier this year by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday and found few problems.

The Texas Secretary of State’s Office announced in September that it had launched a “forensic audit” of the 2020 election in Dallas, Harris, Tarrant and Collin counties. Dallas and Harris are two of the state’s largest Democratic counties, while Tarrant and Collin are generally two of the largest Republican counties, although in the 2020 election Joe Biden narrowly won Tarrant County over the president. outgoing Donald Trump.

The September audit announcement came a day after Trump suggested Abbott, a close Republican ally, to order the audit. The Texas Secretary of State’s office did not say at the time what prompted the announcement.

The office of John Scott, who was appointed Secretary of State for Texas in October 2021, said on Friday that 3,885,875 votes were cast in the November 2020 election in Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Harris counties and that those nearly 4 million votes represented about 35 percent of the estimated 11.3 million votes cast statewide.

The preliminary report found that of those nearly 4 million votes in those four counties, there were 17 deceased voters and 60 duplicate votes across states. The report also confirmed that counties were removing deceased voters from voters lists as planned.

• Statewide, a total of 509 potential cross-state duplicate votes were cast in the November 2020 general election – meaning these people may have voted in both Texas and another state. Of those 509, nine ballots in Collin County, 12 ballots in Dallas County, 27 ballots in Harris County, and 12 ballots in Tarrant County. Statewide, duplicate votes between states represented 0.005% of all votes cast in Texas.
• As of November 2020, 224,585 deceased voters have been struck off the voters lists in Texas, indicating that counties are fulfilling their basic obligations under federal and state laws to maintain the accuracy of the voters list across the country. state and mitigate fraudulent activity related to potentially deceased voters. Collin County removed 4,889 deceased voters, Dallas County removed 14,926 deceased voters, Harris County removed 23,914 deceased voters, and Tarrant County removed 13,955 deceased voters.
• Statewide, a total of 67 potential votes cast on behalf of the deceased are under investigation. Of those 67, three were chosen from Collin County, nine from Dallas County, four from Harris County and one from Tarrant County. Statewide, the votes of the deceased who are still under investigation represented 0.0006% of all votes cast in Texas.

Regarding non-nationals registered to vote, the secretary’s office said there were a number of investigations to be carried out and the final findings would be verified during phase 2 of the audit.

• Statewide, a total of 11,737 potential non-U.S. Citizens have been identified as registered to vote. Of these, 327 records were identified in Collin County, 1,385 were identified in Dallas County, 3,063 were identified in Harris County, and 708 were identified in Tarrant County. While counties still have a significant number of pending investigations to complete and have undertaken this list maintenance process to varying degrees, so far Dallas County has canceled 1,193 potential non-U.S. Citizen records, Tarrant County canceled a record and Collin and Harris did not cancel any potential non-U.S. citizen records. The final conclusions will be verified during phase 2 of the full forensic audit.

In a review of each county’s partial manual count report required by Texas law, three of the four counties reported discrepancies between ballots counted electronically and those counted by hand. The reported reasons for these discrepancies are included in the report and will be re-examined, investigated and verified during Phase 2 of the full forensic audit, Scott’s office said in a statement.

The secretary of state’s office said each of the four counties had spent at least $ 136,000 to improve their respective election security positions over the past two years, including both cybersecurity and the physical security of the election materials. This includes funds provided through the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) Election Security Allowance to the State of Texas, as well as the corresponding local county funds.

Texas is one of many Republican-led states that have imposed new voting restrictions in the name of election security since the party lost the White House. The effort, which led to further restrictions in Georgia, Florida, Arizona and elsewhere, was spurred in part by false claims by former President Donald Trump that the election was stolen from him.

While opponents of Texas’ new election laws said it was a veiled voter suppression and made it harder for people to get help at the ballot box or vote by mail, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (right) refuted these allegations and said the laws made it easier to vote and more difficult to cheat.

The DOJ disagreed with the governor and filed a lawsuit against the state in November, saying the laws violated both the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. The DOJ lawsuit The DOJ has since filed yet another lawsuit against the state over redesigned district maps that they say were drawn with “discriminatory intent.”

See the phase 1 progress report

To the extent that information has not been made available to the Texas Secretary of State’s office prior to the release of this report, the SOS office will endeavor to include all outstanding figures in the final report of this report. ‘forensic audit published after completion of phase 2.