Texas launches audit into 2020 election results after pressure from Donald Trump
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- The Texas Secretary of State's office said they will audit the results of the 2020 election in four counties.
- The move comes after former President Donald Trump pressured the governor to start an audit.
- Although Trump won the state in 2020, the audit primarily focuses on counties where Joe Biden won.
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Texas officials have said they will launch a "forensic audit" of the results of the 2020 election in its four largest counties, following pressure from former President Donald Trump.
Despite winning the state in the 2020 election, Trump wrote to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday and pushed him to audit the results.
"Despite my big win in Texas, I hear Texans want an election audit," the former president said in a statement. "You know your fellow Texans have big questions about the November 2020 Election.
Late on Thursday, the Texas Secretary of State's office confirmed that they would audit the results of four counties; Houston, Dallas, Tarrant, and Collin, local news outlet NBC DFW reported.
Houston and Dallas typically lean Democrat, and although Tarrant has traditionally voted Republican, Joe Biden won the county in 2020.
There was little further information on how the audit would be carried out.
The statement was attributed to Sam Taylor, a spokesman for the office, as the position of Secretary of State has been vacant since May.
Texas Republicans have been pushing to audit the election results in Texas's largest counties, most of which went to Joe Biden.
Democrats and election officials said that Republicans had demonstrated no evidence of widespread fraud in the state and that there was no need for an audit.
Critics say that the decision to start an audit indicates that Texas officials have bowed to pressure from the former president.
-Lina Hidalgo (@LinaHidalgoTX) September 24, 2021
"Donald Trump ordered Gov. Abbott to audit the 2020 Texas election and, like clockwork, TX just initiated an audit of Harris County voters," Harris County's Judge Lina Hidalgo wrote on Twitter.
"Democracy isn't a game. These fake audits are an affront to all voters, & pure pandering to the kinds of extremists that stormed our Capitol."
Local newspaper The Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote in an editorial board opinion that Texans now have "a clear picture of who's in charge of election law in this state"- and it's not the governor or secretary of state, "it's Donald Trump."
On Friday, the results of Arizona's audit of the 2020 presidential election confirmed that Joe Biden won the state.
The controversial GOP-led audit resulted in Trump losing 261 votes, and Biden gaining 99.
Although Donald Trump and his allies have filed dozens of lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 election, all of them have failed.
The Justice Department said it found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the election.
Despite this, the former president continues to promote widely disproved conspiracy theories about the election being rigged.