Collin County commissioners are Republican — but precinct chairs still question election integrity

At least 10 people listed as Collin County Republican Party precinct chairs — and others — have raised questions about election integrity in public comments before the all-Republican county commissioners court since July. Election fraud claims repeatedly have been discredited. But questions about election integrity still come up frequently at the commissioners court meetings in Collin County — and at other public meetings in Texas. Collin County went for Trump in 2020 and every other Republican on the ballot. The county's election administrator answers to the all-Republican commissioners court. But that hasn’t stopped the questions. Clint Pruett of McKinney, Joseph Harwell of Plano and Joe Cruz of Princeton all identified themselves as precinct chairs while speaking at the meetings in Collin County. Precinct chairs help promote the party and the election of Republicans to office.

“I recently became a precinct chair and have great concern about the integrity of the vote,” Harwell said at a meeting in July. “As a precinct chair GOP, I've learned some things that are of concern,” Pruett said. “As a precinct chair with 198 Collin County GOP [his precinct], that the election, the executive committee rather, passed a resolution in April calling for a return to precinct level voting utilizing hand-marked and hand-counted paper ballots,” Cruz said. Others didn’t identify themselves as precinct chairs during their comments but are listed on the party’s website as such. Those include Robert Canright of Plano, Debbie Lindstrom of McKinney, Jessica Hulcy of McKinney, Lee Breckenridge-Moore of Fairview, David Kemp of Plano and Dr. Bob Koons of Plano. Similar scenes are playing out at commissioners’ courts in other Texas counties. The Tarrant County Commissioners Court, for example, held an open forum last April to address election integrity concerns. Abraham George, the Collin County Republican Party chair, said the precinct chairs spoke as individuals at the meetings, not on the party’s behalf. He also said although there were issues in other parts of the country, there was no election fraud in Collin County in 2020. “We know we didn’t have any fraud,” George said. “We won every race.”