ROCKWALL COUNTY, Texas \u2014 A backlog of voter registration applications tied to the Texas Department of Public Safety is putting additional pressure on election offices across the state, including in smaller counties with limited staff and resources.<\/p>\n
Rockwall County, about 25 miles northeast of downtown Dallas, received approximately 3,500 delayed applications. Election officials are working to process the records ahead of early voting, which begins Oct. 19.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy concerns lie more with the fact that this happened, so somewhere there\u2019s a disconnect between DPS and the state,\u201d said Christopher Lynch, Rockwall County\u2019s elections administrator.<\/p>\n
The backlog stems from delays involving voters who used DPS online services to register to vote or update their information. The records were delayed before reaching county election offices.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand that there can be, you know, glitches in the matrix and things get, you know, lost in the shuffle, but, you know, the numbers that were statewide was pretty significant numbers,\u201d Lynch said.<\/p>\n
Lynch said his staff have been working to process the approximately 3,500 delayed applications.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy folks have been working overtime and just really trying to whittle that number down,\u201d Lynch said.<\/p>\n
Rockwall County is not the only county affected by the backlog. Harris County, which includes Houston, received approximately 75,000 delayed records but said it had cleared its backlog by Oct. 3.<\/p>\n
El Paso County also said it had cleared its backlog by the Oct. 5 voter registration deadline.<\/p>\n
In Rockwall County, however, the work is ongoing.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have a number that you weren\u2019t, you know, accustomed to working from an internal manpower,\u201d Lynch said.<\/p>\n
Lynch said the additional applications have increased the workload for his office, which has just five full-time employees.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you say smaller counties, you know, again, limited resources,\u201d Lynch said.<\/p>\n
Lynch said he hopes to clear the backlog before early voting begins Oct. 19.<\/p>\n
Even if an affected voter\u2019s registration has not been processed, there is still a way to cast a ballot.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs soon as we identify, yep, that\u2019s a person that was in that 3,500 population, we\u2019ll vote you provisionally, and your ballot will absolutely count 100%,\u201d Lynch said.<\/p>\n
The Texas Secretary of State\u2019s Office also said voters affected by the backlog could still vote. Voters who registered through DPS but whose applications have not yet been processed can cast a provisional ballot.<\/p>\n
\u201cElection officials have an established method with DPS to check the transaction. If that voter did register through DPS, the vote will be counted,\u201d a spokesperson for the Secretary of State\u2019s Office said.<\/p>\n
Spectrum News reached out to DPS for comment but had not received a response by publication time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ROCKWALL COUNTY, Texas \u2014 A backlog of voter registration applications tied to the Texas Department of Public Safety…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1657,1658,2160,132,1570,102,104,103,138,136128,223,287,82,27,1569,2053,835],"class_list":["post-461695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-app-latest-local-state-politics-stories","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-austin","tag-ctv","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-el-paso","tag-ezekiel-ramirez","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461695","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=461695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}