First phase of Trump Texas vote 'audit' finds the usual result: Nothing to see here

Texas officials today released the first-phase findings of an election ‘audit’ demanded by Donald Trump in three counties in which President Joe Biden (along with a fourth) won and to the surprise of no one, it was a waste of time and money.

Here’s reporting from TV station 5NBCDFW in a story headlined, “Preliminary Findings of 2020 Election Audit Finds Little Trouble in Big Texas Counties”:

“The office of John Scott, who was appointed Texas Secretary of State in October 2021, said Friday 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 represent approximately 35% of the roughly 11.3 million votes cast statewide.

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“The preliminary report found that out of those nearly 4 million votes in those four counties, there were 17 deceased voters and 60 cross-state duplicate votes. The report also confirmed that the counties were removing deceased voters from voter rolls as expected.”

And there was this from the Texas Tribune:

“First part of Texas’ 2020 election audit reveals few issues, echoes findings from review processes already in place: An initial review of four counties’ election results — launched after pressure from former President Donald Trump and touted by GOP leaders — showed few discrepancies between electronic and hand counts of ballots in a sample of voting precincts.”

The Tribune reported:

“The much-hyped four-county review by the secretary of state’s office, the state agency that oversees elections, was announced in September, just hours after former President Donald Trump publicly pressed Gov. Greg Abbott to add election audit legislation to the agenda for the state’s third special legislative session last fall. As part of his baseless effort to cast doubt on the outcome of his failed reelection bid, Trump’s call came despite the lack of evidence of irregularities in the state’s election — and the fact that he won the state.

“The official overseeing the review, Secretary of State John Scott, previously helped Trump challenge 2020 election results in Pennsylvania. Appointed to the position by Abbott, Scott said in an October interview with The Texas Tribune that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election and that he has “not seen anything” to suggest that the election was stolen from Trump.

“In a statement on Friday, Isabel Longoria, election administrator for Harris County, said the Harris County clerk’s office “processed, checked, and balanced a fair and accurate election in November 2020.” After conducting a hand count of mail-in ballots from the 2020 election, Longoria said her office “found no notable concerns.”

“Conducting a hand-count on a scale as large as the November 2020 election is an intensive process,” Longoria said. “The process included manually sorting 179,174 ballots by precinct, followed by a hand-count for 10 precincts that were designated by the Secretary of State. Despite this challenge, our team was able to match the count with a discrepancy of only five ballots.”

In November 2020, votes from the four counties under review made up about 4 million — or about 35% — of the 11.3 million votes cast statewide.