AUSTIN, Texas — The state's top election official is stepping down after just over a year on the job. Texas Secretary of State John Scott announced he is leaving office at the end of the year to return to private law practice.
Scott was appointed by Governor Greg Abbott on October 21, 2021. He presided over four major statewide elections in 2022, including the midterms last month.
Editor's note: The video above originally aired on Oct. 30, 2022.
Scott also oversaw the forensic audit of the 2020 General Election in Texas and plans to release the findings on Dec. 31 before leaving office. The audit focused on Harris, Dallas, Tarrant and Collin counties.
The secretary of state’s office released the first batch of results in January and found few issues despite repeated, unsubstantiated claims by GOP leaders casting doubts on the integrity of the electoral system.
The manual counts showed a mail-in ballot discrepancy of five votes in 10 Harris County precincts, which county officials said was caused by an “an error in the manual counting” of the ballots.
Dallas County had a vote discrepancy of 10 across seven precincts, but the state’s report says that appeared to have resulted from a data entry error when county officials first reported the results of the partial manual count to the state.
In Collin County, a partial manual count of ballots in three precincts found a vote discrepancy of 17. County officials said the difference was attributable to curbside voters who are allowed to vote from their cars using machines that do not produce a paper record, according to the state’s report.
Tarrant County had zero discrepancies in the sample of seven precincts it was required to review.
"When I took office as Texas Secretary of State in October of last year, I did so with a singular goal and mission in mind: to help restore Texas voters' confidence in the security of our state's elections," Secretary Scott wrote in his letter to Governor Abbott.
"I also gained a deep appreciation for the difficult, meticulous, and often thankless work of local election officials in safeguarding the integrity of the ballot box," Scott wrote.