Texas’ top election official will leave his post at the end of the year

Texas’ top election official is resigning his position at the end of the year.

John Scott, who was appointed the Texas secretary of state in late 2021, said in a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott he will return to his private law practice after the holidays.

“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,” Scott, who was appointed in October 2021, told Abbott.

During his short tenure, Scott also oversaw an audit of the 2020 elections in Collin, Dallas, Harris and Tarrant counties that Abbott requested. Results of the first phase of the audit were released a year ago and found no evidence of widespread fraud, the Texas Tribune reported. Scott said in his letter the final results will be released “soon” but did not specify a date.

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