{"id":446760,"date":"2026-09-24T23:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T23:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/446760\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T23:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T23:32:08","slug":"texas-sen-paul-bettencourt-says-state-officials-should-have-caught-dps-error-that-led-to-voter-registration-backlog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/446760\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Sen. Paul Bettencourt says state officials should have caught DPS error that led to voter registration backlog"},"content":{"rendered":"

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Texas\u2019 free newsletter here.<\/a><\/p>\n

A key Texas Republican lawmaker says state officials must be held accountable for an error that led to a backlog of at least 178,000 voter registration applications<\/a> from the Texas Department of Public Safety.<\/p>\n

Votebeat reported earlier this week that DPS failed to send counties thousands of voter registration applications and updates submitted through its online driver\u2019s license portal. Some of those date back at least a year, and counties are now being hit with a deluge of applications to process in the weeks leading up to November\u2019s midterm election. <\/p>\n

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Republican from Houston who has championed election administration legislation for years, told Votebeat on Thursday that although a DPS failure is at the heart of the problem, the Texas Secretary of State\u2019s office should have caught the issue because it oversees the system the counties use to receive the files from DPS. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf the files were received, pulled, or not, that should have been noticeable,\u201d Bettencourt said. \u201cThey should have caught it.\u201d <\/p>\n

When asked whether he was concerned about the error or whether he had offered DPS specific direction on how to handle it, Gov. Greg Abbott referred questions to the agency and the Texas Secretary of State\u2019s Office. <\/p>\n

DPS has said only that the error has been resolved, but has not offered details on how it was fixed or responded to further questions about the cause. <\/p>\n

The backlogged voter registration records go back at least as far as October 2025. They could include new registrations or simply updates to voters\u2019 existing records, like a change in address.<\/p>\n

The exact number of outstanding applications statewide is still unknown, but officials in seven of Texas\u2019 254 counties have confirmed receiving more than a combined 178,000 records. Some of the people whose applications were delayed may have since registered another way. <\/p>\n

Bettencourt said he spoke directly with Texas Secretary of State Robert Howden about the error after Votebeat first reported it <\/a>earlier this week. Howden, who took office in July, recognized the DPS error has to be fixed and the backlog addressed as soon as possible, Bettencourt said. A spokeswoman for the Texas Secretary of State\u2019s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Texas Democrats have called for investigations, as well. The error surfaced just weeks before a hotly contested midterm election in which Democrats are hoping to be competitive for statewide offices, including a closely watched U.S. Senate contest.<\/p>\n

Bettencourt also brought up ongoing issues with TEAM<\/a>, the state\u2019s voter registration system, which was overhauled last summer by the secretary of state\u2019s office. The majority of counties in the state rely on the system to manage elections and to maintain voter registration lists, and election officials quickly began highlighting problems both before and after the July 2025 launch. <\/p>\n

For more than a year, county election officials have been asking for fixes to functionality issues with TEAM that prevent them from completing essential tasks, such as easily sorting through voter registration applications by date. Some of the problems have been resolved, but others \u2014 such as the system operating very slowly \u2014 are ongoing, election officials say. <\/p>\n

In June, Bettencourt publicly asked the secretary of state\u2019s office for assurances that TEAM would be fixed before November\u2019s election and questioned<\/a> whether the Louisiana-based vendor that developed the system, Civix, was the correct choice. <\/p>\n

On Thursday, Bettencourt<\/a> said he still has concerns. TEAM\u2019s functionality is \u201cbasic to rudimentary from what they need in voter registration in a modern sense,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The secretary of state\u2019s office is well-regarded for its expertise in election law, he said, but he criticized their operational efficiency. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re gonna have to shift from being a legal-driven response organization to an operationally excellent organization,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re going to have to do both.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Texans, for Texans.<\/p>\n

Stay in the know on elections across the state with on-the-ground reporting by Natalia Contreras. Get her newsletter, delivered twice a month.<\/p>\n

DPS error leaves officials scrambling<\/p>\n

Texas\u2019 largest counties have received tens of thousands of backlogged voter registration applications and updates after the DPS debacle. <\/p>\n

Dallas County on Thursday confirmed receiving more than 68,000, and Williamson County has received 18,000. Lubbock County confirmed receiving 7,400, Hays County received 8,200, and Cameron County confirmed 4,500. Votebeat reported Wednesday<\/a> that Collin County confirmed receiving 40,000, and Travis County 32,000.<\/p>\n

The secretary of state\u2019s office has said it learned of the backlogged voter registration applications last week, after county election officials flagged that they\u2019d noticed a surge in \u201colder\u201d voter registration applications and updates coming from DPS. Those applications and updates are sent from DPS to counties via TEAM. <\/p>\n

State officials said the affected transactions involved incomplete voter registration records, which were withheld instead of being transmitted to county registrars. <\/p>\n

Officials have not said what information was missing, what caused the records to be incomplete, how many voters were affected, why incomplete information would have prevented the transmission, or exactly when the problem began. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear how many registrations were new versus address updates for already-registered voters, or whether the error prevented any voter from casting a ballot in the March primary election.<\/p>\n

Bettencourt said election officials across the state have been working nonstop to get through the thousands of applications that have dropped in their laps. He described the task as monumental, but said county officials would get it done. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I am impressed with is how much the counties are working to fix all of this in bipartisan unanimity,\u201d Bettencourt said.<\/p>\n

Texas Tribune reporter Colleen DeGuzman contributed reporting.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[154073,48628,27,29,28,3602,19681],"class_list":["post-446760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-r-houston","tag-state-sen-paul-bettencourt","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-tribune","tag-votebeat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}