Secretary of State Scott to resign on Dec. 31
Texas Secretary of State John Scott will resign at the end of the month, he announced Monday.
Scott was first appointed in October 2021, tasked with overseeing the state’s elections amid growing GOP distrust in the system.
He took office just months after the Republican-led Legislature passed a sweeping elections bill standardizing polling hours across the state, introducing new identification requirements for mail ballots and giving more power to partisan poll watchers.
The voting bill also required Scott to lead a forensic audit of the 2020 presidential election results. Now that the 2022 midterms are over, and the audit’s findings are “soon to be released,” Scott will return to the private sector at the start of the new year, he wrote in a resignation letter to Gov. Greg Abbott.
“I am proud to say that Texas has made tremendous progress in restoring faith in our elections over the past year, and that the Texas Secretary of State’s office has developed a successful framework for analyzing and transparently reporting on election security through the forensic election audit process,” he wrote.
Scott released the initial results of the audit nearly a year ago, finding no evidence of widespread election fraud.
Scott will leave state government before the start of the 88th legislative session in Austin, in which the state Senate would have needed to confirm his appointment.
Abbott’s decision to tap Scott for the Secretary of State’s Office last year drew criticism from Democrats and election watchdogs, since he had previously worked with former President Donald Trump as he attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Abbott, a Republican, has not
had a secretary of state confirmed by the Senate since 2017.
Scott’s predecessor, Ruth Hughs, resigned in May 2021 after the Senate declined to confirm her. While Republicans did not publicly express a lack of faith in Hughs, Democrats pointed to her office’s assertion that Texas had a “smooth and secure” election in 2020.
Scott oversaw a difficult rollout of the state’s new ID requirements for mail ballots and the applications for them.
About 12 percent of mail ballots were rejected during the March primaries, and roughly 4 percent were tossed during the general election last month.
Scott’s exit comes as Republicans prepare for another purge of suspected noncitizen voters.
The state’s first attempt in 2019 ended in a resignation and public apology from thensecretary of State David Whitley, who botched the review and threatened the voting rights of nearly 60,000 eligible Texans.
It is more difficult to vote in Texas than almost every other state, according to research.
Lacking automatic and online voter registration, among other policies, Texas ranks fifth among all states for restricting access to the ballot box.