Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is barreling forward with an audit of the 2020 election in his state’s four largest counties after mounting pressure from former President Trump.
The move comes as Arizona releases a much-anticipated election review of its own, which led to increasing friction within the state’s Republican Party and ultimately found Trump lost to President Biden by an even wider margin last year.
At the same time, audits are just beginning in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, led by Republicans in the state legislature.
The GOP-led audit in Arizona found that Biden won Arizona by 1,040,873 votes in Maricopa County in November, which was 99 more votes than the certified ballot in 2020 showed. Additionally, the audit revealed that Trump’s vote total dropped from 995,665 to 995,404.
Still, Trump is continuing his campaign of pressuring other states to conduct audits, citing his unfounded claims that the presidential election was fraudulent.
Trump sent an open letter to Abbott on Thursday, demanding that support Texas House Bill 16, which was filed by Texas state Rep. Steve Toth (R), despite results showing the former president won the Lone Star State by 630,000 votes.
The legislation would permit county and state leaders to send a request to review the 2020 election results to a county clerk, who would then be tasked with establishing an advisory committee to comb through ballots in county precincts. A similar bill drafted by state Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R) already passed the upper chamber but did not make it to the state house.
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