Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration in the United States. Sign up for the free Votebeat Texas newsletter here.
What happened?
Voting rights groups are suing the state of Texas after more than 500,000 voter registration applications were submitted through the Texas Department of Public Safety web portal but were never processed.
The groups are asking a state district judge to enforce a 2021 settlement agreement that required Texas to provide a reliable way for people to register to vote through the DPS online driver’s license portal.
What is the dispute?
In 2016, Texas voters and voting rights groups sued the state over its lack of online voter registration. They argued that the failure of voters to register online while updating their address, driver’s license or ID card through DPS was a violation of the National Voter Registration Act. A federal judge ruled in their favor in 2018, but an appeals court overturned the decision in 2019 because the plaintiffs lacked standing.
Voters and voting rights groups sued again in 2020. This time, a federal judge ordered Texas to offer voters the option to register to vote through the DPS online portal when updating their driver’s license or ID card. In 2021, the state settled the litigation, agreeing to continue the process permanently.
Now, the new lawsuit contends that recent failures in the voter registration systems run by DPS and the Texas Secretary of State’s office have prevented the state from fulfilling that obligation.
DPS and the Secretary of State’s office sent county election officials last month a backlog of hundreds of thousands of voter registration records and updates delayed by a software update error with the DPS web portal. There were at least 500,000 registrations dating back to October 2025. Election officials also said problems with the Secretary of State’s voter registration system, known as TEAM, made the backlog more difficult to resolve at a critical time.
The lawsuit says some voters are still facing registration issues ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
What is the complainant asking for?
The lawsuit, filed last week in Bexar County’s 224th District Court, asks a judge to order DPS and the Texas Secretary of State’s office to maintain a functioning registration process, produce records documenting registration failures and show proof of their compliance to the court within a month.
“Since at least October 2025, Defendants have violated and continue to violate the Contract by failing to comply with procedures that ensure simultaneous online voter registration with driver’s license renewal or change of address transactions,” the lawsuit states.
They argue that a provision of the 2021 agreement says the state could be sued again if “data, methodological, or other systemic limitations prevent the concurrent registration procedures described here from allowing for the simultaneous registration of voters.”
Who are the plaintiffs?
The suit was filed by the League of Women Voters of Texas and MOVE Texas Civic Fund, a nonprofit focused on engaging young Texans and underrepresented communities. Both organizations were also plaintiffs in the 2021 settlement agreement.
“The 2021 settlement agreement paved the way for millions of Texans to register to vote online by simply clicking a box,” Karla Maradiaga of the Texas Civil Rights Project, which represents the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “Now, ahead of a crucial midterm election, the state is denying problems with the DPS system, even though it knows voters have already been impacted, and has refused to be transparent with Texans about why these delays are occurring and what they will do to address this unacceptable violation. »
What is happening now?
DPS and the Secretary of State’s Office are expected to file their responses to the plaintiff’s allegations. A judge will decide whether the registration failures constitute a violation of the state’s 2021 settlement agreement to maintain a reliable voter registration system through the DPS web portal.
DPS and secretary of state officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read more about Votebeat’s coverage of Texas’ 2026 failure to process voter registration applications:
Natalia Contreras covers election administration and voting access for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. Natalia is based in Corpus Christi. Contact her at ncontreras@votebeat.org.
Gn headline
