Citizens for Election Integrity held a meeting on Monday to discuss the Republican primary recount for the Constable Precinct 1 race in Tarrant County.
Adam Hanson called for a recount of the results of the March 5 primary in which he lost the race for the Republican nominee for Constable to opponent Dale Clark by a narrow margin of 47 votes. A hand recount of the ballots uncovered numerous irregularities, prompting Hanson to petition to contest the election results.
“Tonight, we praised, prayed, and discussed election integrity in Tarrant County. We specifically discussed the Hanson recount and upcoming trial on July 18th & 19th. Here are the Hanson race findings,” Rosalie Escobedo, Tarrant County GOP HD area leader, posted on Facebook. She attached a link to a document outlining the election irregularities uncovered in the recount.
Escobedo gave The Dallas Express her perspective on the matter.
“The findings from the Hanson recount are disconcerting. They’re not just significant for this particular race, but they raise crucial questions about the overall reliability of Tarrant County’s election process. It’s astounding to see such substantial discrepancies in tight races, with a net shift of 28 votes in this recount and a host of other anomalies.
“Just consider these startling figures:
- 53 more votes reported by Tarrant Elections than ballots counted in the recount!
- An unimpressive 77 votes counted from voters in an uncured suspended status, which shouldn’t have been included at all!
- A disappointing 125 voters reported as having participated in the Hanson/Clark race, yet [were] mysteriously absent from the April 1 Tarrant County voter roll.
“And those are just the beginning of the issues. With such significant discrepancies, it’s no wonder that the reliability of these elections is being called into serious question,” Escobedo continued.
“These findings make a compelling case for implementing more robust safeguards, such as precinct-level, hand-counted voting. It’s an opportunity to establish our election integrity and ensure that the will of ‘We The People’ prevails,” Escobedo said.
Other election improprieties reported by Citizens for Election Integrity involve the video recording of the recount.
“Video recording of recount stopped on night of April 3 or early morning of April 4 shortly before counters started on Election Day ballot bags. The video recording resumed on April 8 as Election Day ballot bags were being finished,” the group’s website states.
The organization is also calling for election reforms, including pre-printed numbered ballots and an end to county-wide voting, which it claims “severely impairs audits of elections.”
Hanson’s attorney, Warren Norred, previously stated that their goal is to void the previous election so it can be conducted again, reported Texas Scorecard.
“This challenge is based on illegal votes cast in the race, the number of which exceeded the margin of victory for Clark. The results of a hand recount of the race identified 9,246 votes for Hanson and 9,265 votes for Clark, for a margin of 19 votes.
“Contestant has identified 186 voters who registered too late to vote during the primary and another 77 voters whose registration was in a suspended status and who failed to complete the statement of residence as required by state law before voting,” Norred wrote in the district court petition.
Norred told The Dallas Express that too many illegal votes are cast in county-wide voting.
“Adam Hanson’s recount demonstrates that county-wide voting makes close elections impossible to accurately audit. Hanson’s election contest shows that illegal votes are routinely cast and exceed the margin of victory. The trial is on the 18th and 19th of next week in the 236th district court,” he said.
Norred hopes that state leaders will be moved to action as these election irregularities continue to come to light.
“State legislators and other interested parties need to recognize that Texas elections are not being run properly, and the general hope that they can just brush it all under the rug is not a long-term strategy,” Norred said, reported Texas Scorecard.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, Gov. Greg Abbott and other residents called for attention to alleged election fraud in a Harris County judicial race. A Houston judge last month found that 1,430 votes in the 2022 180th district court race were deemed invalid.
The Dallas Express reached out to the Tarrant County Elections Office for comment but did not get a response.
