The McLennan County Elections Office is sorting through some 6,000 voter registration forms sent by the Texas Department of Public Safety little more than a week before the Oct. 5 early voting registration deadline.
In the meantime, voters can check their registration with the Texas Secretary of State here by answering a few simple questions. If you’re not listed, contact the county elections office at [email protected] or by calling 254-757-5043.
At least 178,000 voter registration applications were not sent to county election officials around the state on time, the result of an apparent glitch in the DPS’ online registration system discovered last week, according to reporting from The Texas Tribune and Votebeat.
McLennan County Elections Administrator Jared Goldsmith said the county should have enough time to input the delayed applications before early voting commences Oct. 19.
“It’s definitely created more work for us, though I’m not concerned that we won’t get through them,” he told the Bridge on Monday.
In the event that the delayed applications are not processed — or had the DPS system error not been discovered — he said voters with affected registrations would be able to cast provisional votes at the polls, with their eligibility determined afterward.
Goldsmith expects record turnout for the midterm elections. Voter participation in the March primary elections exceeded turnout for the 2024 presidential election primaries, according to county election office data.
Chris McGinn, executive director of the Texas Association of County Election Officials, said the organization is still gathering numbers from its members but that he expects large counties to be hit the hardest with additional applications.
Votebeat reports that the Secretary of State’s office became aware of the problem in mid-September, when election officials noticed a surge in “older” voter registration applications coming from DPS in TEAM, the state’s voter registration system.
State officials have told Votebeat that the affected transactions produced incomplete voter registration records, which prevented them from being transmitted to county registrars.
The records represent nearly a year of backlogged voter registrations. They could include new registrations or simply updates to voters’ existing records, like a change in address.
The Texas Tribune and Votebeat contributed to this story.
