{"id":473886,"date":"2026-10-22T23:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T23:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/473886\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T23:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T23:04:08","slug":"san-antonio-early-voting-complaints-mount-as-turnout-surges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/473886\/","title":{"rendered":"San Antonio early voting complaints mount as turnout surges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Voters continue to crowd polling sites<\/a> across San Antonio on Thursday, October 22. Bexar County is on track for a record-breaking turnout <\/a>in a non-presidential election, but can the county handle the massive turnout? Complaints from the polls paint a troubling picture.<\/p>\n

With nine days of early voting<\/a> left before Election Day \u2013 and before the ballots are tallied to determine the next several years of Texas leadership \u2013 turnout in Bexar County has already reached a fifth of early voters in the 2024 election<\/a> (a Presidential year). Midterm to midterm,<\/a> that figure climbs to 36%.<\/p>\n

But that wave of civic activity is accompanied by several frustrating accounts from polling sites across the city. One voter tells MySA they waited in line only to be told a ballot was missing. Poll workers called the Bexar County Elections Department, which reportedly confirmed their registration status, but they were left waiting for a resolution.<\/p>\n

After about an hour, the system was updated. This resident may have been able to cast a vote \u2013 after giving up an extra hour of their day \u2013 but what happens if the solution isn\u2019t so simple? After all, the Elections Department reportedly had a challenging time figuring out why this issue arose in the first place. And it allegedly wasn\u2019t the first time it\u2019d happened that day.<\/p>\n

MySA reached out to the Bexar County Public Information Office and Bexar County Elections Administrator Michele Carew to learn what happens when a voter\u2019s name is inexplicably missing from the voter rolls on site. Would this mean more provisional ballots? If so, could this delay counting the election results?<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they are registered, they should be shown as such on the on-site system. If not, they need to confirm with the judge who will call the Elections Department if confirmation is needed,\u201d a Bexar County assistant public information officer told MySA without addressing the rest of our questions.<\/p>\n

ACLU Texas<\/a> says all voters are entitled to a provisional ballot, even if they don\u2019t appear in the poll book at a voting site in town. But it\u2019s then left to election officials to investigate those provisional ballots<\/a> to determine whether the person was registered to vote.<\/p>\n

According to the 2024 election reconciliation totals<\/a>, 94% of the provisional ballots cast in the 2024 election were rejected. There\u2019s also no explanation for this, raising questions about whether the tens of thousands of backlogged voter registrations from months ago are still being processed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs anyone else\u2019s voter registration status showing an effective (date) after Election Day even though you submitted the form before the October 5 deadline?\u201d a confused resident asked online. \u201cI know the Bexar County Registrar\u2019s office said they\u2019re backlogged with registrations, but I mailed mine in on September 15\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

As early voting kicked off in San Antonio, residents began sounding the alarm about incorrect ballots. At the polls, residents were missing propositions for their school districts and, at times, saw neighboring school districts instead. Recently, the elections administrator pointed the finger at the Secretary of State.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe data we received from the state \u2013 there were splits in districts,\u201d Carew said Tuesday,<\/a> October 22, pointing to streets split down the middle with different districts or voting districts on either side. \u201cThe data we received from the state transposed the ballot styles.\u201d<\/p>\n

In total, there were 150 \u201csplits\u201d where incorrect ballots could become an issue, says Carew, but it\u2019s unclear how many faulty ballots that translates to. She said the issue was resolved within an hour after it was brought to the Election Department\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won\u2019t even know how many people are affected until the ballots are back and we\u2019re able to examine them,\u201d Carew said, placing the onus on the voter to know what should be on their ballot and to notify an election judge if items are missing or incorrect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Voters continue to crowd polling sites across San Antonio on Thursday, October 22. Bexar County is on track…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[847,820,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-473886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-mysanews","tag-mysastaff","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473886","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=473886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}