Scott will take over as secretary of state as Republican leaders in the state and across the country continue to perpetuate baseless claims of election fraud, driven by Trump. Elections officials in Texas have maintained that there was no evidence of widespread fraud in 2016, 2020 or in any other election.

Trump — who carried Texas by 5.6 percentage points, or 631,221 votes in 2020 — has called for election audits in Texas and a handful of other states. Trump and his allies filed 62 lawsuits challenging election results and all failed, according to a USA Today analysis.

One such lawsuit was filed in Pennsylvania days after the 2020 election. Court documents show that on Nov. 13, Scott signed onto the lawsuit to represent Trump, who sought to block the certification of votes in the state using claims of irregularities with mail-in ballots. Three days later, Scott withdrew as Trump’s counsel in the case.

“The governor’s choice for Secretary of State is unfortunately consistent with his anti-democracy agenda,” said state Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prarie and chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. “Abbott is appointing one of the architects of Republicans’ big lie that Donald Trump actually won the 2020 election to oversee all electoral activity in our state.”

Abbott declined to add legislation authorizing a “forensic audit” of election results to the agenda for the most recent special session, despite public pressure from Trump and other Republicans. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is pushing Abbott to call a fourth special session to address the issue.

Shortly after Trump first asked Abbott to tackle the issue, the secretary of state’s office issued a news release stating that the agency had started an audit of results in four of the state’s largest counties: Harris, Dallas, Tarrant and Collin.

Few details of the audit have been released, but an overview of the process shared in another agency release revealed that the first tasks to be completed are all things counties are required to do by law after an election, including identifying and removing illegally registered voters; conducting partial manual counts of some ballots; and completing security assessments of county election systems.

It is unclear who will be overseeing the process, but Sam Taylor, spokesman for the secretary of state’s office, said the agency will not be hiring or contracting with an outside firm.

Texas has been without a secretary of state since late May, when Ruth Hughs resigned from the post after she was not confirmed by the Senate. Hughs was appointed in August 2019, between regular legislative sessions, which means she was constitutionally required to resign after the Senate did not hold a confirmation vote during the next regular session.

David Whitley, who held the position before Hughs, also resigned after the Senate failed to hold a confirmation vote on his appointment.

In Whitley’s case, all 12 Democrats in the chamber at the time refused to vote in favor of his confirmation over his handling of an error-filled investigation into the citizenship of registered voters in the state. The investigation led to three federal lawsuits that culminated in a court settlement ending the probe and limiting the scope of future investigations by the office.

Scott will face the same confirmation requirement during the next regular session in 2023.

Scott served as deputy attorney general for civil litigation in the attorney general’s office, when Abbott was attorney general. He later became the chief operating officer of the state’s Health and Human Services Commission and also served as chairman of the board for the Department of Information Resources, another Abbott appointment.

Scott is a founding partner of Franklin Scott Conway, the same law firm that employs state Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola. He attended South Texas College of Law and graduated in 1988.

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