Houston, TX – A released audit letter from Secretary of State (SoS) John Scott's office shows a massive chain-of-custody breach in reviewing the election from the Harris County election from 2020. In fact, the letter from the Secretary of State's Director of Forensic Audit Division, Chad Ennis points out that the former elections administrator Isabelle Longoria wouldn't even let her staff communicate with the SoS personnel during the audit. "I have been trying to get answers about mismatched vote totals in Harris County since the November 2020 election as far back as early voting," said Senator Bettencourt (R-Houston). "So, while I'm not surprised, it is shocking to see an estimated breach of over 100,000 votes with the chain-of-custody broken, and Harris County election administrators not following the law."

See the letter from Director Ennis.

Senator Bettencourt's estimate of 140,000 plus comes from the fact that MBBs have a limit of 9,999 per Judge Booth Controller, apparently, they were found to be amalgamated to a higher average amount. "14 polls with no proper chain-of-custody for the MBBs means that management of Harris County cannot follow State and Federal laws!" he added.

Senator Bettencourt first detected errors in early voting totals during the election, and despite his questions, as well as multiple requests from the Secretary of State, no answer was ever received on these issues from the appointed county clerk Chris Hollins or the resigned Elections Administrator, Isabel Longoria.

Click to read press release from August.

"Despite me using facts that, Harris County has 1884 more votes than the voter roster in their records. In senate floor debates, no answer came, and now we know why! They didn't maintain the required election records and violated the law. Also, it is preposterous not to be able to read voter information on these MBB's from the prior election," he added.

Finally, the Harris County Commissioners court authorized a "frivolous" lawsuit per Senator Bettencourt because the Secretary of State randomly drew Harris County as one of the two counties selected for a 2022 election audit. "I hope County Attorney Menefee, Judge Hidalgo, Commissioners Ellis and Garcia, will drop their frivolous lawsuit from August, 2022, and get to work helping the new Elections Administrator, Clifford Tatum, clean this mess up!" He concluded.

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