The Forensic Audit Division (FAD) of the Texas Secretary of State’s office has identified 188 “phantom voters,” according to the latest audit of the 2020 election.
Texas Secretary of State John Scott released a report on December 19 of the final phase of the office’s full forensic audit of the 2020 general election. This audit surveyed the Collin, Tarrant, Harris, and Dallas counties.
Dallas County experienced two “large problems” over the course of the election, according to the audit. These problems were the loss of experienced workers and issues with poll books. A poll book is a device used at polling locations to check voter registration during the check-in process.
Phantom voters are created when a voter checks in, but the electronic poll book checks in a different voter. The county’s poll book issues created 188 of these “phantom voters,” according to the report.
Dallas County also reportedly misplaced 318 provisional votes. According to the audit, “Dallas County provided four sources of data showing mail ballots statistics. These sources were inconsistent and none matched the canvass.”
Harris County was identified as having “serious issues” when handling electronic media. These issues included records from 26 early voting locations and 8 Election Day polling locations not matching the tally audit logs, as well as inconsistent warehouse records.
Chad Ennis, director of the Texas Secretary of State’s Forensic Audit Division, said that when procedures were not followed, small and large discrepancies in data occurred.
“When procedures are followed, results of the election are trustworthy,” said Ennis. “Indeed, in most cases, the audit found that the counties followed their procedures and clearly documented their activities. In some cases, however, they did not,” he continued.
Tarrant and Collin County received favorable reportings, with Collin being noted as the “model of how to run elections in Texas.”
“Texas has some of the strongest and most effective transparency measures in the country when it comes to administering and auditing elections,” said Secretary Scott in a release.
“The Texas forensic election audit — which is, by far, the largest undertaken in the nation to date — demonstrates how these measures can and should be used to make sure Texas voters can have confidence in the outcome of any given election, as well as which areas counties need to address to restore confidence going forward,” he continued.
Poll workers in Dallas County reported evidence of fraud in the 2022 midterm election as poll machines displayed inconsistent numbers, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Officials, however, claimed that the reason for these discrepancies was due to technical issues on the part of the tech provider and perception errors.