This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

Texas election officials clear backlog of thousands of voter registrations

Natalia Contreras, Votebeat

Oct 14, 2026 at 6:24pm EDT

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Election officials across Texas appear to have cleared a backlog of hundreds of thousands of voter registration applications and updates that went unprocessed for more than a year due to a state software error.

More than 500,000 voter registration records were caught in what the Texas Department of Public Safety said last month was an error related to a software update for the agency’s online driver’s license portal.

Roughly a month after state officials acknowledged the issue, The Texas Secretary of State’s Office and the Texas Association of County Election Officials both said on Wednesday that they’re not aware of any county still working through the backlog.

Kristin Miles, president of the election officials’ association and the Bastrop County election administrator, said the effort shows county election officials will do whatever it takes to ensure that eligible voters can cast ballots.

“If that means long nights and working weekends, county election officials are not going to fail the voters of Texas,” Miles said. But, she added, the state “should be looking at ways to prevent those things from happening again in the future to ensure that county election officials are not burdened by issues that may arise. Because at the end of the day, it was county election officials who put in the work to get the job done.”

Last month, Votebeat first reported on the backlogged voter registration records, which dated back to October 2025. The news came shortly before the state’s Oct. 5 voter registration deadline, which meant election officials had to scramble to get through backlogged records on top of hundreds of voter registration applications arriving daily.

Voting rights groups have sued the state, saying the backlog breached a 2021 settlement agreement that required Texas to provide a reliable way for people to register to vote through DPS’ online driver’s license portal.

Some better-resourced counties with outside vendors and additional technology, including Dallas, Harris, and Collin counties, were able to get through the backlog within a week. But many election officials said issues with the secretary of state’s voter registration system, known as TEAM, made the backlog harder to resolve during a critical time.

The Texas Secretary of State’s Office said it would offer counties grants to pay for costs related to the backlog, and on Wednesday confirmed it is still offering money to cover overtime and temporary workers.

“Texas counties have worked diligently and have cleared the backlog. We don’t know of any counties with pending applications,” Alicia Pierce, the spokesperson for the secretary of state’s office said in an email Wednesday.

Although the backlog related to the DPS records has been cleared, election officials continue to process voter registration applications they’re receiving by mail and in person ahead of the election. Even if they are processed later, registrations that were postmarked or submitted through DPS’ portal ahead of the Oct. 5 registration deadline will be considered valid for the Nov. 3 election.

Pierce said if a voter registered through the DPS web portal but does not appear on the voter roll, they can cast a provisional ballot and election officials will take additional steps to determine their eligibility so it can be counted.

“Election officials have an established method with DPS to check the transaction. If that voter did register through DPS, the vote will be counted,” she said.

Natalia Contreras covers election administration and voting access for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. Natalia is based in Corpus Christi. Contact her at ncontreras@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.