Texas officials who have doubted the elections -- without evidence

Early voting is open across Texas through Friday, October 30, and several North Texas counties reported record first-day turnout — Dallas County alone logged 76,079 in-person voters on opening day. The rolls behind them are also the largest ever for a Texas election: over 19 million registered voters as of October 2026.

Yet nearly one in three likely Texas voters says they lack confidence the November 3 election will be conducted fairly and accurately. A University of Houston Hobby School survey of 2,000 likely voters, conducted October 10–14 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.19 points, found 22% "not too confident" and 8% "not at all confident".

That doubt has a specific source: the state's own elected leaders, who have spent years telling Texans their ballots may not count.

Who said what

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, in office since January 2015, said in May 2020: "This is a scam by the Democrats to steal the election". In October 2020 he went further: "If the president loses Pennsylvania or North Carolina, Mark, or Florida, they'll lose it because they stole it".

Shortly after that election, Patrick announced a reward of up to $1 million from campaign funds for evidence of voter fraud. The first — and only reported — payout was $25,000, and it went to a Pennsylvania poll worker who reported a Pennsylvania voter. It was not a Texas case at all.

Attorney General Ken Paxton, in office since January 2015, said in 2021: "A lot of voters, as well as myself, believe something went wrong in this election".

In December 2020, Paxton filed a U.S. Supreme Court lawsuit seeking to invalidate results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin; the Court rejected the case. On January 6, 2021, he spoke at the rally in Washington, D.C., before the Capitol attack, criticizing Georgia Republican officials for accepting Joe Biden's victory. As of late October 2026, Paxton is the Republican nominee for a U.S. Senate seat on the November 3 ballot, facing Democrat James Talarico.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, in office since January 2013, told the Senate on January 6, 2021: "We've seen in the last two months unprecedented allegations of voter fraud. I think we in Congress have an obligation to do something about that". He immediately added: "Let me be clear: I am not arguing for setting aside the result of this election".

That same day, Cruz led a written objection to Arizona's electoral votes; the Senate rejected it 93 to 6.

Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, in office since January 2015, was asked in October 2022 whether he believed the 2020 election was stolen. "I believe it was," he said. "We have evidence of that. We have the video of the 2000 mules". The film 2000 Mules, which Patrick helped promote, was later disavowed by its own distributor, and its claims were described by election officials and fact-checkers as unsupported.

Then-U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert claimed in November 2020, without evidence, that the election was "in the process of being stolen".

Governor Greg Abbott, in office since January 2015, took a narrower line in November 2020, publicly questioning the pace of vote-counting in battleground states rather than alleging a stolen election.

The pattern across these statements is that they did not hold up. The Supreme Court rejected Paxton's suit. The Senate rejected Cruz's objection 93 to 6. The film Miller and Patrick cited was disavowed by its own distributor.

What the record actually shows

Texas keeps its own tally, and it tells a very different story.

• Since 2005, the Texas Attorney General's office says it has prosecuted 155 people for 534 election-fraud offenses — its cumulative total across more than a decade and a half of Texas elections.
• From January 2020 through September 2022, the Attorney General's office opened at least 390 election-related investigations but secured five election-fraud convictions.
• The Heritage Foundation, a conservative research group, lists 45 verified voter-fraud cases in Texas resulting in 61 convictions over the full history of its database.
• The Texas Secretary of State's forensic audit of the 2020 election identified 5,483 potential non-citizen voter records across four large counties — Harris 3,063, Dallas 1,385, Tarrant 708, and Collin 327 — but these were potential registrations, not confirmed illegal votes.
• In September 2026, Texas and federal officials announced charges against seven people accused of voting unlawfully in federal elections. The state referred 117 potential cases to the attorney general, while 578 voters flagged by a federal database were confirmed to actually be U.S. citizens.
• A Tarrant County election-integrity task force reviewed 193 public allegations of election misconduct and found two election violations; county officials reported no verified widespread fraud in recent years.

Texas's own election administrators described the 2020 election in the opposite terms from the officials above. Elections director Keith Ingram called it "smooth and secure", and then-Secretary of State Ruth Hughs declared: "Despite the challenges presented by COVID-19, this election was a resounding success".

Set against the scale of actual voting — 11,388,674 Texans cast ballots in November 2024 alone — the fraud record amounts to convictions measured in the dozens across a decade and a half.

What Texans are left with

• 30% of likely Texas voters told the October 2026 Hobby School survey they are "not too confident" or "not at all confident" that the November election will be conducted fairly and accurately.
• In November 2024, Texas had 18,623,931 registered voters and 11,388,674 cast ballots — turnout of 61.15% — meaning millions of registered Texans stayed home.
• The state's own election officials described the 2020 election as "smooth and secure" and a "resounding success," while prominent elected leaders told voters the opposite.

Your ballot, step by step

• Confirm your registration. The deadline for this election was Monday, October 5, 2026, so if you are registered, you are in. Verify it anytime using the "Am I Registered?" tool in the Secretary of State's My Voter Portal on VoteTexas.gov, which pulls directly from the statewide registration database.
• Cast your ballot. In-person early voting runs through Friday, October 30, 2026, and Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026.
• If you vote by mail, track it yourself. The "Track My Ballot" / Ballot by Mail Tracker in the My Voter Portal on VoteTexas.gov shows your ballot's status, and some counties also offer BallotTrax notifications as it moves through the system.
• If you hit a problem or a question, the Texas Secretary of State's voter-information hotline can be reached at 1-800-252-VOTE (8683).
• A reliable sign your vote counted is a confirmation from the state or your county through the My Voter Portal tracker — not a rumor on social media or a passing claim that ballots are disappearing. The actual record shows fraud measured in a few dozen convictions across more than fifteen years against tens of millions of ballots.