Texas: Election Denial in Races for Election Administration Positions

View the entire Election Denial in Races for Election Administration Positions series

Below, we compile quotes from campaigns’ ads, websites, social media posts, and statements reported in the media that illustrate endorsement or opposition to election denial — claims that the process or result of the last presidential election was illegitimate. Each of the candidates is running for an office that will play a role in administering future elections in Texas. Information about the financing of these campaigns and those in other battleground states can be found here.

Governor

Danny Harrison (lost primary)

Danny’s Harris­on’s (R) campaign website critiqued the incum­bent he is oppos­ing in the primary, saying, “Where was Governor Abbott when the elec­tion was stolen from back in Novem­ber?”

Don Huffines (lost primary)

The campaign website of Don Huffines (R), a former state senator, claims: “Illegal aliens have cast ballots in Texas elec­tions” and “crim­in­als [can] cast votes on behalf of dead people.” The page states that in 2020, the governor “allowed Demo­crat-run counties to flag­rantly viol­ate state elec­tion law while Repub­lican poll watch­ers were denied access to observe ballot count­ing.” In February, the Huffines campaign sent an email to supporters claiming that an interim report on the Texas secretary of state’s audit of the 2020 election “proves that illegal aliens are voting in Texas elections” and criticizing Gov. Greg Abbott for allegedly opposing “a full forensic audit.” A campaign Facebook ad from August 2021 called for “a full forensic audit of the 2020 election results in our state’s largest counties.”

Chad Prather (lost primary)

Chad Prather (R), host of a show on the conser­vat­ive Blaze TV outlet, has tweeted that “Stolen elec­tions get people killed.” The “elec­tion integ­rity” section of his campaign website refer­ences conspir­acy theor­ies about the 2020 elec­tion, includ­ing propos­als requir­ing that polling places be searched for “hidden boxes of suspect ballots, ” as well as having “build­ings surroun­ded by trus­ted people for 48 hours (or until count is announced) to ensure no strange vehicles turn up with ‘found’ ballots.”

Allen West (lost primary)

Former member of Congress Allen West (R) has called for audits of the 2020 vote in Texas and said that the Harris County Clerk “should prob­ably be in jail for what he tried to do in under­min­ing Texas elec­tion law.” In an inter­view promoted by his campaign, West refer­enced “uncon­sti­tu­tional actions” by governors and judges to change elec­tion law

Hood County Clerk

Michelle Carew (lost primary)

Michelle Carew (R), the former appoin­ted elec­tions admin­is­trator for Hood County, criti­cized elec­tion deni­al­ism in her campaign announce­ment, decry­ing attempts “to control how elec­tions are run, just to bene­fit a radical polit­ic­ally partisan group.” Carew entered the race after the incum­bent clerk, Katie Lang, attacked her for allegedly being biased in running the elec­tion. Lang attemp­ted to oust Carew, who even­tu­ally resigned and entered the race to chal­lenge Lang. In a Wash­ing­ton Post op-ed published days before she declared her candid­acy, Carew wrote that “the constant ques­tion­ing of the 2020 elec­tion and the constant spread of lies foster an envir­on­ment that encour­ages attacks against elec­tion offi­cials.” She insisted that “the votes were coun­ted fairly.”

Travis County Clerk

Susan Haynes (nominated)

On her campaign website, Travis County clerk candid­ate Susan Haynes (R), a nurse practitioner, writes: “There are lots of alleg­a­tions, with some convin­cing data, that our elec­tions have been manip­u­lated for quite some time. . . . Voting machines are the mech­an­ism by which elec­tions are stolen. We must stop using machines and return to paper ballots, with sequen­tial serial numbers, hand coun­ted at the precinct level. Right now [there are] endless oppor­tun­it­ies for data manip­u­la­tion.” Haynes has centered her campaign on the prom­ise that she will end “irreg­u­lar­it­ies in elec­tions.” One of the few posts on her campaign Face­book page says, in part, “No more elec­tion irreg­u­lar­it­ies. Our votes will be heard.”

Dyana Limon-Mercado (won primary)

Dyana Limon-Mercado (D), the executive director of Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, has opposed election denial. On the anniversary of the January 6 riot to prevent Congress certifying President Biden’s Electoral College win, she tweeted a campaign video in which she claims, “Republicans spent 2021 trying to rig our elections in their favor.” The video criticizes Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s attempt to charge the outgoing Travis County clerk, Dana DeBeauvoir, with a crime over a dispute with a poll watcher. It concludes, “I’m running to protect our democracy and our local elections from Paxton, Abbott, and Trump.” A February tweet by Limon-Mercado calls on voters to “protect our elections from GOP meddling.”