![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_9517.jpg\")
Bexar County Commissioners approve the final contract for a new voter-registration system by third-party vendor VR Systems. Pictured left to right: County Judge Peter Sakai, Precinct 3 Commissioner Grant Moody, Precinct 4 Commissioner Tommy Calvert. Credit: Stephanie Koithan<\/p>\n
After a half-year delay and the scrapping of a January contract that was a nonstarter, Bexar County Commissioners Court on Tuesday approved a final pact for a new voter-registration system from third-party vendor VR Systems.<\/p>\n
The new elections-management system will enable Bexar County to abandon the Texas Secretary of State\u2019s flawed TEAM 2.0 system, which has caused backlogs and delays at the county level ahead of both the fall and spring elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fight to get VR Systems is emblematic of the shenanigans to suppress the vote that are happening in Texas,\u201d Precinct 4 Commissioner Tommy Calvert told the Current of the approval. \u201cAnd it never should have taken as long as it did to get where we got.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bexar County officials first began considering the switch over to the third-party vendor in the summer, before the prior vendor Votec went out of business in August. Bexar was one of several Texas counties that previously relied on Votec and were forced to make a sudden switch to the state\u2019s free voter-registration system.<\/p>\n
However, Bexar County Elections Administrator Michele Carew warned county commissioners at the time that TEAM wasn\u2019t equipped to handle a county of our size. That\u2019s why VR Systems has emerged as the vendor of choice for several other populous Texas counties, including Tarrant, Denton, Collin and El Paso.<\/p>\n
The sudden need to upload Bexar County\u2019s 2 million voter registration records to TEAM in August and September caused a backlog of 70,000 voter registrations to pile up ahead of the rapidly approaching fall election. <\/p>\n
After Votec went under, county commissioners voted during the body\u2019s meeting last September to draft a contract with VR Systems. However, a process the vendor said normally takes 30 to 60 days ended up taking 6 months.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, the proposed deal produced in January was markedly different than the standard contract initially presented by the vendor. The differences were profound enough that VR Systems legal team would not approve the deal, company Chief Operating Officer Ben Martin told the Current at the time. This caused the January meeting to adjourn with no action taken, and cast doubt whether the commissioners could even approve a replacement pact at the February meeting.<\/p>\n
Given how far the original document had allegedly strayed from the proposal presented by the vendor, it marked a sharp change of fortunes when it was approved by the vendor and passed at this Tuesday\u2019s commissioners court.<\/p>\n
The Current reached out to VR Systems on the new contract and what had changed to make it acceptable. However, we received no response by press time.<\/p>\n
The contract for the voter-registration and elections-management software will cost the county nearly $2 million, an amount that had already been set aside in the budget due to the prior contract with Votec.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Grant Moody, the sole Republican on the dias, was also the sole no vote on the contract both in September and at Tuesday\u2019s meeting. Moody, who previously expressed displeasure at the price tag, argued Tuesday that the county shouldn\u2019t rush its normal contracting process, according to the San Antonio Report.<\/p>\n
But VR Systems\u2019 Martin told the Current at the January meeting that because the vendor only onboards one county at a time and implementation takes one to two months, time is of the essence. Further delays would have sent Bexar to the back of the line as the company worked with other counties.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Bexar County Elections officials still have to contend with the state\u2019s TEAM 2.0 system for the March primary and May runoff. Officials said the system already is causing problems as early voting gets underway.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have ballot-by-mail applications that have come into our office, we\u2019re about 20,000 in [for the primary], it takes us seven to 10 minutes per application to just get it into their system,\u201d Carew told the San Antonio Report. \u201cNot only that, other counties are reporting that some of the data that they\u2019re inputting into there is getting wiped out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now that the battle for VR Systems has been won, Commissioner Calvert said this is just one battle of many in the fight for voting rights in Texas as the midterm elections approach. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a constant tug of war to have a fair election,\u201d Calvert said. <\/p>\n
Sign Up for SA Current newsletters.<\/a><\/p>\n Follow us:\u00a0Apple News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Google News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0NewsBreak<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Reddit<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Facebook\u00a0<\/a>| Twitter<\/a>\u00a0| Or sign up for our\u00a0RSS Feed<\/a><\/p>\n Related Stories<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\tPaxton had accused Jolt Initiative of an \u2018unlawful voter registration scheme,\u2019 but a federal judge found the AG failed to offer \u2018any plausible proof\u2019 of wrongdoing.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"AG](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771533494_464_20251008-Turning-Point-Lubbock-TT-102-scaled-1.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n
![\"Contract](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771533494_285_Commissioners-Court.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Texas](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771533495_994_electionsoffice-scaled.webp.jpeg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n