Thread by @hollyshansen

🧵Thread on the gaslighting taking place regarding @TXsecofstate Forensic Audit Division (FAD) letter to #HarrisCounty Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum in #Houston.
1/16

The 15-page letter w/docs was sent Tuesday, but someone leaked it to a reporter who then posted 2 pages and misled the public about its full contents. That person instead focused on the Texas Secretary of State sending the inspectors to Harris County, but...

2/16

Per a 1997 state law, the SOS is required to send inspectors to any county upon the request of 15 or more voters and has been sending them to Harris County, the state’s most populous, and many others for years.

3/16

The inspectors do not interfere with the election procedures in any way but observe and take notes. You can request reports for many past elections in Harris County and elsewhere.

4/16

The letter is from Forensic Audit Division Director Chad Ennis and describes preliminary finding from an ongoing audit of the county’s 2020 elections.

5/16

Last year the SOS announced audits of the state’s two most populous Democratic AND Republican counties: Collin, Dallas, Harris, and Tarrant. While 3 fully cooperated, Harris County did not.
thetexan.news/2020-election-…
6/16

The SOS FAD letter thanks the new Harris County Elections Admin for actually cooperating.
(The county tried to find a legal way to block the audit, but under EA Longoria they simply did not cooperate.)

7/16

Once the SOS Audit division was able to look at equipment and records, they found multiple examples in which Harris County did not follow state and federal law regarding maintenance of the records.
For example,

8/16

After the county switched to a new voting system, they discarded the computers and equipment needed to read the Mobile Ballot Boxes used in the 2020 election. This is like keeping the old VHS tapes without a VHS player to play them, only it’s worse…

9/16

Because they didn’t even keep copies of the software needed to read Harris County’s Mobile Ballot Boxes.

10/16

Further, the serial numbers on the Mobile Ballot Boxes tallied are different from the serial numbers on the Mobile Ballot Boxes used to collect votes in at least 14 locations. And the poll book data does not match the number of cast vote records.

11/16

This could be due to transferring the tallies to a new device, but the county did not document the chain of custody in accordance with the law, and so far, has not provided an explanation.

12/16

The letter from TX SOS Forensic Audit Division is to notify the new EA of the problems and ask that he create a plan to ensure that these same mistakes do not happen in 2022.

13/16

The county has had a lot of difficulty managing elections since 2020 and made national news during the primary when the EA failed to include 10,000 ballots, both Republican and Democrat, in the reported totals.

14/16

The SOS is also sending trainers to assist Harris County EA with procedures to help ensure there are no mistakes, and that the election runs smoothly this time.

15/16

So, there you go. Inspectors and trainers onsite are normal. Audit is of both D & R counties. Harris County didn’t cooperate and then when they did SOS FAD found problems that need to be corrected going forward.
Our story here: thetexan.news/texas-secretar…

16/16

Here’s a link to the state election code regarding inspectors.

statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/EL/htm/EL…

New statement from #Texas SOS:

“a cynical distortion of the law…”

Instead of relying solely on what a journalist says (I include myself here) you can read the full letter yourself here (and the related law too).
sos.state.tx.us/elections/fad/…