TEXAS – On September 22nd, Votebeat and The Texas Tribune reported that the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) failed to transmit an unknown number of voter registration applications submitted through its online driver’s license portal to county voter registrars. This comes less than two weeks before the Oct. 5 voter registration deadline for the Nov. 3 Midterm Election, as county officials are already struggling to process paper voter registration forms.
MOVE Texas was a part of the 2020 lawsuit that won the state’s first, albeit limited, online pathway for voter registration. Since then, approximately 6 million Texans used the DPS portal to register between 2020 and 2024.
Regarding the issue, MOVE Texas Action Fund Interim Executive Director Mia Balderas released the following statement:
“When a Texan registers to vote, they should be able to trust that their application gets where it needs to go. We fought in court for this system, and millions have relied on it since. Now the state owes voters answers about what happened — and a plan to make sure every eligible voter who registered on time is protected.
“This failure points to a larger problem: Texas is pointing millions of people to a voter registration system that not only isn’t equipped to count us all, but one that essentially functions as a barrier to the ballot box. We need a comprehensive system that works for young Texans balancing jobs, school, and everything else in their lives — not one prone to clerical errors, processing mistakes, and chasing down our own paperwork to make sure our voice counts. This is the unfortunate and neglectful result of a state that has never made it a priority to get this right.
MOVE Texas will keep doing our part, doubling down on helping Texans to check their voter registration status and to get on the rolls ahead of Oct. 5. We are demanding DPS work with the same tenacity, spirit, and energy that young people are bringing to the polls this November.”
MOVE Texas is joining Common Cause and our partners in urging our Governor Abbott and state leaders to:
- Provide emergency resources so counties can process every affected application before early voting begins.
- Ensure every affected voter’s registration reflects the date they originally submitted it through DPS.
- Tell Texans what went wrong, when it started, how many people were affected, and what is being done to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
- Establish full online voter registration so Texans have a modern, reliable way to register rather than being limited to the current DPS pathway.
What voters should do right now:
- If you registered or updated your address through DPS online, check your registration today at movetexas.org/vote before the Oct. 5th deadline.
- If you don’t show up, call your county elections office for next steps. They’re getting a lot of calls, so be patient with them! Here’s how you can find their number [LINK]
- Find a MOVE Texas voter registration drive near you. [LINK]
- If you’re not on the list when you go to vote, don’t panic. Ask for a provisional ballot, since election officials confirmed that it will be counted once their DPS registration is confirmed.
- If you need additional help or didn’t show up on the rolls after updating your registration through DPS, call or text 866-OUR-VOTE, Election Protection’s nonpartisan hotline, for support in multiple languages.
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MOVE Texas Action Fund is a grassroots nonprofit organization mobilizing young Texans to influence policy and electoral change.