The 74,000 backlogged voter application forms Tarrant County received from the state last week are mostly processed and on track for completion ahead of the registration deadline, elections administrator Clint Ludwig told the Fort Worth Report.\u00a0<\/p>\n
About 60,000, or 81% of the forms, have been processed, Ludwig said in an email Tuesday afternoon. He expects the processing of remaining forms to be finished by Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The elections office implemented mandatory overtime to process the backlog, which will continue until all the processing is finished, Ludwig said. He also hired four temporary workers to help.<\/p>\n
The deadline to register<\/a> to vote is Oct. 5. All applications submitted before the deadline will be processed as usual, Ludwig said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last week, state election officials notified<\/a> counties that an unknown number of voter registration applications submitted through the Texas Department of Public Safety\u2019s online driver\u2019s license portal had not been processed. The applications produced incomplete records, which prevented them from being sent to county elections offices as required, Votebeat reported<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The backlog of applications was distributed to counties about two weeks before the registration deadline for the Nov. 3 midterms. Each application form submitted through the DPS portal does not necessarily represent a new voter, as some voters use the portal to update their registrations.\u00a0<\/p>\n More than 1.3 million people are registered<\/a> to vote in Tarrant County, according to the elections office. Ludwig advised that voters use the county\u2019s voter lookup tool<\/a> to check their status ahead of the deadline.<\/p>\n \u201cIf a Tarrant County resident shows up to vote and is told they are not in the poll book, that resident may request a provisional ballot,\u201d Ludwig said via email. \u201cElections staff will verify that resident\u2019s (eligibility) to vote in this election. If that resident is indeed eligible to vote in the election, then the provisional ballot will be counted.\u201d<\/p>\n The Nov. 3 ballot features partisan races<\/a> at the county, state and federal levels, as well as nonpartisan seats<\/a> on the Tarrant Appraisal District and some local school boards. Early voting is Oct. 19-30.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cecilia Lenzen is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n