The Tarrant County Elections Center has been abuzz for the last couple of weeks as people sort through boxes of paper ballots from the March 2020 primary election, looking for any inconsistencies between voting machine results, paper ballots, and reported results.

On September 23, 2021, the Texas Secretary of State’s (SOS) office announced a full forensic audit of the November 2020 General Election in Collin, Dallas, Harris, and Tarrant counties, Texas Secretary of State John B. Scott announced.

The audit followed a request made by the Tarrant County Citizens for Election Integrity Texas (CEIT), which claimed that the county’s voting machines were not in compliance with the Texas Constitution, as reported by The Dallas Express.

CEIT pointed to Article 6, Section 4 of the Texas Constitution, which reads, “the Legislature shall provide for the numbering of tickets and make such other regulations as may be necessary to detect and punish fraud and preserve the purity of the ballot box; and the Legislature shall provide by law for the registration of all voters.”

Additionally, Section 52.062 of the election code states that all ballots “shall be numbered consecutively beginning with the number 1.”

CEIT claimed that Tarrant County’s voting machines violate these provisions. The group also previously alleged that an array of fraudulent activities occurred during the 2020 general election, both in Tarrant County and around Texas.

“This is just to start, it’s like a sample for us,” said CEIT volunteer John Raymond, speaking about their audit with Votebeat. “We have to start somewhere, and I’m guessing these were also the ballots that were available first.”

Heider Garcia, the Tarrant County election administrator, spoke at a public forum in May and assured concerned voters that the machines were constitutional and secure.

Still, roughly 40 CEIT activists wanted a recounting of paper ballots themselves by hand, and Garcia relented.

“All you have to do is count the paper trail,” Garcia said, speaking with CBS News. “We said that repeatedly. And so I love that they’re doing this, cause eventually, they have to come back and say, ‘We counted the paper trail, and it works.’”

The self-appointed CEIT vote auditors have not explicitly stated what they are looking for in recounting March 2020’s primary ballots aside from “[ensuring] the results of the election were accurate,” according to Votebeat Texas.

“We’re not here as Republicans or Democrats,” said Raymond to Votebeat. “A lot of people don’t have faith in our elections, so we’re just here counting, making sure that what the secretary of state’s numbers say are right.”

Still, they are focused on 2020’s Republican primary for U.S. Senate, a contest between the incumbent victor, Sen. John Cornyn, and a slew of challengers, none of whom got more than 13% of the vote. This particular primary had already undergone a manual partial recount by county officials as part of an audit.

Garcia has stated that his office’s post-election review found no red flags. Still, he encouraged anyone interested to investigate the results as long as it does not interfere with election preparations since ballots are a matter of public record, reported CBS News.

“There’s nothing wrong with the election,” Garcia said to The Texas Tribune. “But the ballots are now public, and it’s their right [to inspect them], and we will do everything that we have to do to make sure they can exercise their right to inspect public records.”

County election officials must remain present in the room to observe the count and enforce rules that prohibit the tampering or altering of ballots.

“A lot of people in this office have had to learn to shuffle priorities,” Garcia told Votebeat. “We’re monitoring this process, we’re helping them, we’re answering questions, calls, and everything they need. But our people are also trying to register voters, and we’re also trying to fulfill other information requests we have.”

The audit will likely continue for about another week as county election officials prepare for this year’s midterms in November.