Texas Says Voter Registration Backlog From Software Glitch Is Cleared as Groups Sue the State

AUSTIN, Texas. Texas election officials said on Thursday, October 15, that a backlog of voter registration applications that built up after a software failure in a state system has been cleared, days before early voting for the November 3 midterm elections begins on Monday, October 19.

The backlog grew out of the online portal run by the Texas Department of Public Safety, the agency that issues driver licenses. Texans can register to vote, or update an existing registration such as a change of address, when they renew a license online. A lawsuit filed by voting groups says the department failed to send nearly 600,000 of those registrations on to the secretary of state, who distributes them to county registrars for processing. Some of the delayed records date back to October 2025. In Harris County, which includes Houston, more than 75,000 applications were held up, county officials said.

A vendor software change sits at the center

The lawsuit says internal emails show the department acknowledged in March that a programming change by a vendor working with the state Department of Information Resources stopped online registration choices from being transmitted between December 2025 and February 2026. The department has attributed the wider problem to a software glitch tied to a third party vendor and said the fault was resolved on September 13. A July 2025 overhaul of the state voter registration system also caused processing delays, county officials told the court.

Voting groups ask a court to step in

The League of Women Voters of Texas and MOVE Texas Civic Fund filed the case on October 9 in Bexar County. The defendants are the secretary of state office and Secretary of State Robert S. Howden, and the Department of Public Safety and its director, Freeman F. Martin. The groups say the state broke a 2021 settlement, reached in the federal case Stringer v. Hughs under the National Voter Registration Act, that requires Texas to offer registration when residents renew a license or change an address online. About 6 million Texans have used that process, the groups say.

The groups are not asking for money. They want a permanent court order that forces the agencies to keep a working registration process, hand over records showing where the failures happened, and file proof of compliance within a month. One voter named in the case, League member Margaret Altizer of San Antonio, said she updated her license address online in August and later found she was still registered at her old address in a different precinct.

Counties finished the pile before early voting

County officials said the backlog had been mostly cleared by Wednesday, October 14, after local workers scrambled to process the late records. Harris County finished its share earlier this month. Registrations sent through the portal by the October 5 deadline still count for the November 3 election even if processed late, and voters who registered that way but cannot find their names on the rolls can cast a provisional ballot, county officials said. Voters can check their status at VoteTexas.gov or with their county election office.

The failure landed in one of the most closely watched states of this midterm cycle, with a competitive United States Senate race between Attorney General Ken Paxton and James Talarico. Last month, Senator Alex Padilla of California, the senior Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees federal elections, wrote to Governor Greg Abbott and Secretary Howden asking for an explanation of the failure. Voting advocates say the episode may still discourage some Texans from voting at all.