Harris County will face another state review of how it runs elections after the Texas Secretary of State selected the county through a random draw on Wednesday, Aug. 12, marking the second such audit in four years.

The audit will cover elections operations from 2025 through 2026, according to the Houston Chronicle. For Spring-area voters, that means the county's handling of everything from poll worker training to ballot supplies and chain-of-custody procedures will be under a microscope heading into the Nov. 3 general election.

Spring is unincorporated and has no city government. Harris County administers every election for Spring-area precincts, including local races like two Old Town Spring Improvement District board seats on the November ballot.

What the last audit found

The first audit, published in 2024 and covering the 2021–2022 election cycle, documented serious failures. State reviewers concluded that "persistent equipment issues, untimely delivery of equipment and diminished ballot supplies impacted the administration of elections in Harris County."

That audit also flagged a broken chain of custody for thousands of ballots across at least 14 polling locations. Those findings prompted the then-Secretary of State to deploy state inspectors to Harris County polls during the November 2024 election.

Different leadership this time

This will be the first audit of elections run by County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth, who took over election administration after state lawmakers abolished the county's elections administrator position in 2023. Voter registration duties went to Tax Assessor-Collector Annette Ramirez.

Ramirez welcomed the selection. "This is not our first rodeo," she said, according to the Chronicle. "We take our voter registration processes seriously and are very familiar with the audit process."

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, who authored the 2021 law requiring the audits, told the Chronicle that Harris County's operations have improved since 2022.

"There's no question. There's been significant improvement," Bettencourt said.

P.O. box complaint adds to scope

Bettencourt said part of the new audit will examine a complaint he filed after discovering more than 100 voters registered at P.O. boxes at UPS stores and postal offices around Harris County. The Secretary of State validated that complaint in a December 2025 letter to Ramirez and provided the county with a list of 127 additional private mailbox locations for review.

What's next

The audit is mandated by a 2021 Texas law requiring four counties to be randomly selected every two years. Two must have populations over 300,000 and two below. The current Secretary of State is Robert S. Howden, who succeeded Jane Nelson.

Previous audits took roughly two years from selection to publication. No specific timeline for this audit's findings has been announced. Early voting for the November general election begins Monday, Oct. 19.