Travis County election staff are working through more than 35,000 voter registration records that the Texas Department of Public Safety failed to send to the county, including some submitted nearly a year ago.
About 32,000 of them landed at the Travis County Tax Office in one overnight batch Sept. 22-23, pushing the county's DPS total past 35,000, Voter Registrar Celia Israel said Sept. 23.
The backlog landed less than two weeks before the Oct. 5 registration deadline for the Nov. 3 election.
What happened
Texans can register to vote or update their registration online only while renewing or changing a driver's license or state ID through DPS. DPS sends those requests to the Texas Secretary of State's office, which passes them to county voter registrars.
DPS said in a Sept. 24 statement that a third-party vendor whose software handles the daily batch files to the state updated its software in October 2025, cutting off parts of some records and leaving the state unable to process them.
DPS said it found the problem in late August and that the agency, the Secretary of State's office and the vendor fixed it Sept. 13. The Secretary of State's office alerted counties Sept. 16. The state confirmed receipt of corrected files Sept. 18, DPS said.
DPS said in a Sept. 30 statement that in-person registrations were not affected and that it had resent all potentially affected records. The state has not released a statewide count as of press time.
What voters should know
Registrations count from the day of the DPS transaction, so anyone who registered through DPS on or before Oct. 5 is eligible for the November election even if the county processes the record later.
Anyone missing from the rolls after registering online through DPS can still cast a provisional ballot, which officials will count once they confirm the DPS transaction, according to the Secretary of State's office.
Voters can check their status at votetexas.gov or with Travis County. Anyone whose status looks wrong can file a paper application by Oct. 5.
The registration deadline is Oct. 5. Early voting starts Oct. 19, and Election Day is Nov. 3.
