Texas Voter Registration Error Sparks Scramble Before Midterms - Newsweek

Texas election officials are scrambling to process an unknown number of voter registration applications that were held up by an error in the state's Department of Public Safety (DPS) system, with less than two weeks to go before Texas' deadline to register for the upcoming midterm elections.

Election officials discovered the issue last week when a batch of voter registration applications that had been sitting unprocessed suddenly appeared in the state's voter registration system, Votebeat reported.

Christina Adkins, the state's elections director, said in an email to county election officials that DPS had found that some registration records generated through its online system were being marked as incomplete. As a result, the applications were not sent to county officials for processing.

She said the state was working with DPS to ensure that the "modifications they made to their system to address this issue are not impacting daily files going forward."

It is not clear how many voters were affected or what caused the records to be marked as incomplete.

Newsweek contacted DPS for comment via email on Wednesday.

DPS has identified the affected applications, and the state confirmed to Votebeat that it would start sending the affected registrations to county officials overnight on Tuesday.

The timing has added pressure on local election offices, with Texas' looming October 5 voter registration deadline for the November 3 midterms.

The backlog must now be processed by county election offices.

For counties that work directly in the state's voter registration system, officials will withhold an older application if the voter has since submitted an updated registration, Adkins said in the email.

Counties that use third-party software are expected to receive all the affected applications and must check for newer updates themselves.

Alicia Pierce, a spokesperson for the secretary of state's office, told Votebeat that voters who registered through DPS and whose registrations were affected could still cast a "provisional ballot," which would be counted if election officials confirm that the voter had registered before the October 5 deadline.

Texas does not have full online voter registration, but eligible residents have been able to register through the DPS portal since 2020 while renewing a driver's license or state identification card or updating an address online.

DPS officials told state lawmakers last year that about 6 million Texans used the portal to register to vote between 2020 and 2024.

Texas voters can check their registration status online through the VoteTexas.gov Portal.

On November 3, Texans are set to decide a gubernatorial election and a hotly contested Senate race. Early voting begins on October 19.

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Matthew Cannon and Shakeema Edwards.