Audit finds few problems in Tarrant County’s 2020 presidential election count
Initial results from an audit of the 2020 election in Tarrant County — ordered just hours after former President Donald Trump’s request — found 12 instances in which someone might have voted in another state and one possible case of a vote being cast in the name of a deceased person.
Additionally, the first phase found no discrepancies in Tarrant County’s manual recount of the ballots and nearly 31,000 duplicate voter registrations.
In September, the state announced that an audit of results in the four largest counties would be done in two phases. The first phase was to remove the registrations of ineligible voters who cast ballots and to examine voting machine accuracy and cybersecurity. This spring, auditors will examine election records in Dallas, Harris, Tarrant and Collin counties.
Trump, who has made unsubstantiated claims of a stolen election, lost in Tarrant County with 49.1% of the vote, but won the state with 52%. Tarrant County residents cast 838,968 votes in the 2020 presidential election.
According to the audit, the four counties cast 35% of the state’s votes. There were few discrepancies in electronic and manual counts across the four counties, and in total there were 144,709 cancellations for duplicate voter registrations, according to the report. There were also 60 cases in which someone might have voted in another state.
Following the election, the audit report shows, Texas counties were required to do a partial manual recount at some of its voting locations within 72 hours of the polls’ closure and no later than 21 days following the election. About 17,000 to 18,000 of the mail-in ballots in Tarrant County had defective bar codes, which required the ballot board to copy the mail-in ballots into new ones and scan them.
Tarrant County found no discrepancies between its electronic and manual counts at seven election precincts, the report shows.
The county spent $136,000 — $120,000 in Help America Vote Act Funds and $16,000 in a county match — to improve security equipment in areas like transportation, surveillance and curbside voting. Tarrant County also increased security with its voter registration system, according to the report.
Tarrant County canceled 13,955 registrations of deceased voters and four registrations for felony convictions. It canceled one registration for non-citizenship.
County Judge Glen Whitley, who said in September the county would assist with the audit, said Monday the results of the audit were just as suspected and supported what officials have been saying about the election being well-run, calling it a “great nonevent.” He said now was the time to shift focus to the primaries in March.
Tarrant Elections Administrator Heider Garcia, when reached for comment Monday, also said the results were as expected. He said there were no surprises and that the audit was of little to no cost to the county, but didn’t have specifics on the number of hours it took staff to compile information for the audit.
Garcia said office would continue to work with the Secretary of State.
Eleanor Dearman contributed to this report.
