A rocky tech overhaul at the Texas Secretary of State’s office has left the state’s new online candidate portal half-baked, sending party officials and elections staff scrambling as they race to finalize the March 3, 2026, primary ballot. Local party chairs in Bexar County say dozens of hopefuls, especially Republicans in multi-county congressional races, were missing from the portal after the Dec. 9 filing deadline. With ballot-order drawings and candidate forums coming up fast, county staff and party leaders are now double-checking private rosters against state records to make sure no one gets left off.
According to the San Antonio Report, party leaders huddled with Bexar County elections staff this week after spotting gaps in the portal. GOP chair Kris Coons told the outlet, "We get everything from the Secretary of State." The reporting highlights cases where the newly redrawn 35th and 21st congressional districts briefly showed no candidates on the state list, and notes that local parties have started posting their own rosters instead, with Democrats circulating Google Docs and local Republican groups sharing internal lists to plug the information hole.
TEAM Update And The Registration Fallout
The trouble traces back to a major update of the state’s TEAM voter-registration system over the summer, which county officials say brought glitches and slowed processing on millions of records. The Texas Tribune reported that the July rollout produced inconsistent behavior, including old addresses overriding new ones, precinct mix-ups, and occasional failures to save changes, prompting some county officials to urge the state to hit pause. The migration, combined with the abrupt collapse of a third-party vendor, forced several counties onto TEAM in a hurry and created both a backlog in registrations and knock-on problems for the candidate portal.
How Local Parties And The County Are Coping
Bexar County eventually cleared tens of thousands of backlogged registrations by bringing in dozens of temporary clerks and tying its street database directly into TEAM, according to the San Antonio Express-News. County Elections Administrator Michele Carew told the paper that her office has been working closely with staff in the Secretary of State’s office and is considering a long-term switch to a vendor such as VR Systems. While that gets sorted out, party organizations are reposting candidate lists and circulating sample ballots so candidates, volunteers and voters have something reliable to go on.
Where The Secretary Of State Fits
The candidate portal is one piece of a broader modernization effort by the Texas Secretary of State. Official instructions and filing details are laid out on the office’s Candidate Information pages. Materials from the Texas Secretary of State direct voters to the VoteTexas site to check registration status and explain how candidates file for office. In practice, though, local party chairs and county election offices remain the main source for verified filings in multi-county and statewide races while the portal plays catch-up.
Third-Party And Independent Candidates Face Extra Hurdles
For now, the portal’s dropdown menu only shows Republican and Democratic candidates, which means Libertarian and independent hopefuls do not appear publicly until party conventions wrap up or independents finish collecting and qualifying signatures, the San Antonio Report noted. Libertarian chair JR Haseloff told the outlet his party has urged the state to open the portal to third parties, while independent candidate Jason Wolff said the current calendar leaves independents with a tight window to gather required signatures after the March primaries. As a result, organizers and voters have been leaning on county records and direct party communications to verify who will actually land on the ballot.
Voters and community groups are being advised to keep an eye on VoteTexas and their county election websites for the latest word on registration and candidate lineups. Party chairs say they plan to continue posting their own local lists and coordinating with election officials until the state portal finally reflects every valid filing.
