Bexar County election officials spent the days before early voting racing to process a fresh wave of voter registration records, after a state address-validation error threw a new wrinkle into an already chaotic election season. The Bexar County Elections Department temporarily shut its office to the public Thursday and Friday to handle the surge, with staff working through nights and weekends ahead of Monday's 8 a.m. start to early voting.
How Big Is the Backlog, Really?
The exact size of the new problem depends on who you ask. According to San Antonio Current, Bexar County faced a backlog of 13,000 voter registrations that needed processing before Monday. But other outlets tell a different story: the Texas Tribune reported that Bexar County received 3,000 affected records from the state Thursday night, a figure that aligns with county officials' own accounting of applications processed through the Texas Online portal. Statewide, officials identified 15,000 unprocessed records tied to the new error, per expressnews.com.
The glitch traces back to address updates submitted through the state's voter-registration name and address change website between Sept. 1 and last week, the Tribune reported. The Secretary of State's Office attributed the problem to what it called an extra address validation involving Texas.gov, according to Votebeat. County officials then had to quickly sort out which of those records were submitted before the Oct. 5 registration deadline so they could be updated in time, the Tribune noted.
Staff Working Around the Clock
Bexar County Elections Administrator Michele Carew said her staff was working around the clock to process the backlog received Thursday night, according to expressnews.com. The office closed its doors to the general public for two days because of the sheer volume of applications coming in. That followed weeks of preparation: the department had already added up to 60 temporary staffers working in shifts, first hired in early September, to help process backlogged hand-delivered, mailed-in and vote-by-mail registration applications around the clock. At one point, the department was processing 10,000 hand-delivered applications on top of everything else.
This isn't the first backlog Bexar County has faced this cycle. A separate, much larger problem stemmed from a Texas Department of Public Safety software error tied to the agency's online driver's license portal, which created a statewide backlog of hundreds of thousands of records, the Tribune reported. That DPS error alone affected more than 500,000 voter registrations submitted since October 2025, according to KUT. Bexar County received 45,000 backlogged registrations from DPS last month and finished processing all of them, per expressnews.com.
Voters Won't Be Turned Away, Carew Says
Despite the confusion, Carew said no voters on the suspense list or those who registered before the deadline would be turned away at the polls, according to KSAT. Bexar County currently has 159,000 voters on a suspense list requiring them to confirm their home address, the station reported. Those suspense-list voters can still cast ballots anywhere and anytime within the county, and they can update their address with a poll worker if needed.
Voters are being told to bring valid identification, such as a Texas driver license, state identification card or Texas election registration certificate, and to show up regardless of how their status appears online. Texas also accepts a Texas election identification certificate, a Texas personal identification card, a Texas handgun license, a U.S. military ID with photograph, a U.S. citizenship certificate with photograph, or a U.S. passport book or card as acceptable voter photo ID.
Bigger Crowds, More Equipment
County officials say they're bracing for turnout on par with a presidential election rather than a typical midterm, KSAT reported. To handle the expected crowds, Bexar County plans to roll out additional polling equipment to cut down on wait times, a response to long lines that plagued the March primary, when some voters waited up to three hours after polling sites closed. The county has also added polling locations and stations to reduce bottlenecks this time around.
The current scramble is just the latest in a string of registration headaches for Bexar County this year. In January, the elections office completed a backlog of 7,000 voter registrations, and before the November 2025 election, the county updated more than 75,000 registrations tied to an earlier backlog, according to TPR. Earlier in 2026, one million Texans statewide found their voter registration listed as suspense, the station reported. The Secretary of State's Office has offered counties grants to offset costs such as overtime pay and bringing in additional staff to deal with the repeated backlogs, the Tribune noted.
Early voting for the November general election runs from Monday, Oct. 19, through Oct. 30, with Election Day set for Nov. 3, according to the Texas Secretary of State. To be eligible, applicants must be at least 18 years old by Election Day, a U.S. citizen, and a resident of the county where they're registered. Voters looking to register, check their status or update their information can do so through VoteTexas.gov, the state office said.
