Trump's Texas 'forensic audit' already in chaos as officials admit they don't know what they're doing: report

A demand from Donald Trump that Texas officials audit the 2020 presidential ballots in select counties is already creating confusion and chaos in the Lone Star state, reports CNN.

On Thursday, the former president fired off a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott (R) demanding an audit of ballots in counties where President Joe Biden did well, and the office of the secretary of state issued a statement reading, "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."

However, despite announcing that "forensic audits" are proceeding, county election officials tell CNN they are not proceeding and they are clueless over how to go about complying.

As CNN's Sara Murray reports, "...a handful of Texas counties, officials in many of those counties told CNN they're still in the dark about the audit plans."

As the report notes, Abbott flipped responsibility for ordering the audits to the secretary of state's office -- which is currently lacking a secretary of state.

"Abbott's office referred questions about the audit to the secretary of state's office. The secretary of state job is currently vacant in Texas and other officials in that office did not respond to requests for comment," the report states. "Officials in Dallas, Harris and Tarrant counties said they had not yet received any requests from the secretary of state's office for information or materials that would be relevant for a post-election audit... One Texas official told CNN that even officials inside the secretary of state's office were unaware of any audit underway."

Harris County Elections Administrator Isabel Longoria fired back at the demand for an audit, telling CNN, "We have seen countless attempts to delegitimize the 2020 election. Today's actions represent another attack by officials on our communities' trust in elections."

CNN reports, "Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley, a Republican, offered a more cutting assessment of the push," with Whitley explaining, "The conspiracy theorists who want to come up with all these ways or reasons why this election wasn't right -- they might very well find something else [to doubt]. It's time to move on."

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