Texas county election officials are working to process a backlog of tens of thousands of voter registration applications following a technological error at the state level. The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) confirmed on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026, that a system issue prevented certain registration records from being transmitted to the secretary of state’s office and local counties for nearly a year.
The issue originated in October 2025 within the DPS online portal, which allows residents to register or update their information when renewing a driver’s license. According to the Texas Association of County Election Officials (TACEO), some applications submitted as early as last year were not sent to county registrars until this week. The agency stated that the system issue has since been resolved and they are backfilling the incomplete information.
The scale of the backlog varies by location, with Bexar County alone reporting approximately 45,000 delayed applications. Other populous counties reported receiving a "flood" of records numbering in the tens of thousands. Local officials noted that because these applications remained unprocessed for months, some residents may have been unable to vote or were initially turned away during the state’s March primary elections.
The backlog affects residents who attempted to register or update their addresses through the Department of Public Safety over the last 11 months. In Bexar County, approximately 45,000 people are impacted by this specific delay. For an individual voter, this means their name may not appear on the official voter rolls. If these applications are not processed by the start of early voting on Oct. 19, affected individuals would have to cast provisional ballots rather than standard ballots at their polling places.
The surge in paperwork requires county election offices to reallocate resources or hire temporary staff weeks before the Nov. 3 general election. This administrative strain occurs as election offices are already managing a U.S. Senate race between state Rep. James Talarico (D) and Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). State Rep. John Bucy III (D-Austin) has requested that Gov. Greg Abbott provide additional resources to counties to assist with the workload.
The deadline for Texans to register to vote for the upcoming general election is Oct. 5. Election officials are urging all residents to verify their registration status at VoteTexas.gov before that date. Early in-person voting is scheduled to run from Oct. 19 through Oct. 30. For those who remain missing from the rolls on Election Day, Nov. 3, officials stated that provisional ballots will be available.