Unknown number of Texas voter registrations went unprocessed due to DPS error
3 hours ago
- Texas election officials discovered that the Department of Public Safety (DPS) failed to send voter registration applications submitted through its online driver's license portal to county registrars due to incomplete records.
- The error was found weeks before the October 5 voter registration deadline for the midterm elections, potentially affecting an unknown number of voters.
- State officials have not disclosed how many voters were affected, what caused the incomplete records, or when the problem started.
- The DPS portal is a major registration channel; from 2020 to 2024, about 6 million Texans used it to register, out of over 18 million registered voters.
- Voters whose registrations were impacted can still have ballots counted by casting a provisional ballot, with election officials able to verify the transaction through DPS.
- Counties face increased processing backlogs due to the sudden influx of older applications, and those using their own software must manually check for newer registrations from the same voters.
- The state is working with DPS and vendor Civix to fix the issue, temporarily removing affected files from county dashboards.