Texas voter registration glitch delayed hundreds of thousands

Texas has said very little about the technical cause. Officials first called it a computer glitch. Later, the secretary of state’s office described it as a programming error that arrived in a software update to the DPS driver’s license portal.

That portal is where many Texans renew a license or get a new one, and it also lets them register to vote or update an existing registration in the same visit. The update broke the step that should have passed those voter applications on. The state hasn’t explained which part of the code failed, how long the fault went unnoticed inside government, or why it wasn’t caught in testing.

The secretary of state’s office later told reporters that the delayed applications had been sent to voters’ home districts and that the fault was fixed. A spokesperson added a safety net: anyone still affected could cast a provisional ballot, a ballot that is set aside until officials confirm the voter is eligible.

MOVE Texas Civic Fund and the League of Women Voters Texas, two voting-rights groups, sued over the backlog in Bexar County. Their complaint names Secretary of State Robert S. Howden and his office, along with DPS and its director, Freeman F. Martin. The groups describe the delays as part of a pattern of voter suppression.

The case builds on an older fight. Five years earlier, voting groups won a lawsuit that forced Texas to comply with the National Voter Registration Act, the federal law often called the motor voter law. It guarantees people the right to register to vote while they update a driver’s license online. The new suit argues that a months-long backlog breaks those protections.

The fix didn’t end the trouble. County officials found that another system error had disrupted about 15,000 more registrations over the following month, and counties had to clear those records before early voting began on Oct. 19.

Chris McGinn, who leads the Texas Association of County Election Officials, captured the mood. Just as counties thought the end was in sight, McGinn said, another unexpected backlog was being dropped on them.

Those backlogs ran alongside a wider complaint from county staff about the state’s voter registration management system, known as TEAM. It was overhauled in the summer of 2025 and built by Louisiana-based Civix. Election officials say it is slow, stops working without warning and makes routine jobs harder than they should be. For example, it won’t sort records by the date they were submitted, and staff must mark mail-in ballots as sent or received one at a time instead of in batches. State officials have pointed to complicating factors such as last year’s rare midcycle redistricting, but county officials say TEAM’s problems go further than that.

Despite the warnings, county administrators ran the midterm election without major problems for voters, and at least 9 million Texans voted. The state then changed its tone.

In the days after the vote, Texas officials acknowledged that TEAM had not met performance expectations. The state posted a request for proposals for an independent audit, which will judge whether the system works, check whether the delivered modules are complete, look at what users actually need and decide whether the current system can be saved in the long run. Christina Adkins, who directs the elections division, told counties the audit should start in December so results are ready for the 2027 legislative session.

The state also set up a ticketing system so counties can track fixes after they report a problem, something they had long requested. Working groups of county election administrators, clerks and tax assessor-collectors, plus staff from Civix, are due to begin meeting in December and January.

Howden, appointed in July, said the state had run several successful statewide elections on the updated system and learned a lot. With no major statewide election in the coming year, he said, there is a window to gather input and improve it. Kristin Miles, the county officials group’s current president and Bastrop County’s elections administrator, welcomed the move and said counties will watch closely to make sure the promises are kept.

The lesson for ordinary voters is that a confirmation screen on a license portal isn’t the end of the process. Your application still has to travel to the county that keeps the voter roll, and in Texas that hand-off failed for a long stretch.

• If you registered or changed your address through a license renewal, check your status with your county voter registrar well before the next election.
• If your name is missing at the polls, Texas officials say a provisional ballot is available while your eligibility is checked.
• Watch for the audit’s findings next year, which will shape whether Texas fixes TEAM or replaces it.