AUSTIN (AP) — Texas' top elections official resigned Monday after an intense year of trying to reassure election skeptics, navigating the rocky launch of new voting laws that resulted in thousands of discarded mail ballots and overseeing a limited audit of the 2020 election.
Secretary of State John Scott, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, came under immediate scrutiny from the moment he took the job in October 2021. He was briefly part of former President Donald Trump's legal team that challenged the results of the 2020 election but said upon taking the job in Texas that he did not dispute that President Joe Biden was the winner.
Right away, Scott was tasked with trying to give Texas voters confidence about election results and the ability to cast a ballot after Republicans passed a sweeping new voting law just weeks before his appointment. But those efforts got off to a bumpy start during Texas' first-in-the-nation primary as voters struggled to navigate new mail voting requirements, resulting in counties throwing out nearly 23,000 mail ballots.
