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Cameron County among four Texas counties selected for new election audit

1 year 8 months 3 hours ago Friday, July 29 2022 Jul 29, 2022 July 29, 2022 9:34 AM July 29, 2022 in Election Coverage
By: Kristine Galvan

Cameron County is among the four Texas counties picked by the Secretary of State’s Office for a random election audit following the November elections.

State auditors will inspect how votes are processed and if check-ins at polling locations match the number of votes cast.

“This is a very new process, so we'll be the first ones in South Texas to undergo this process,” said Cameron County Elections Administrator Remi Garza.

Cameron County, Harris County, Guadalupe County and Eastland County were chosen Thursday. Harris and Cameron counties have populations above 300,000, while the other two have populations below that mark.

Cameron, Harris and Hidalgo are among 18 Texas counties with populations of at least 300,000 people.

"It's likely that the larger counties will be undergoing these audits on a more frequent basis," Garza said.

Willacy and Starr are among the other 236 counties with smaller populations. Neither were picked for this inaugural round, which leaves Cameron’s election administrator learning first.

"We really won't know until November of 2022 what they're going to be asking us for,” Garza said. “We have some ideas but we don't know.

While the Harris County attorney has questioned the selection process, Garza says he’s focused on what comes next.

"We're hopeful that it will show that people can have the confidence in the election system here in Cameron County but also it could expose weaknesses that we have and then we can address those as necessary," Garza said.

The selected counties won’t have to pay for the audits and a county cannot be picked for an audit twice in a row.

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