With less than 25 days until election day, Bexar County’s voter registration backlog has grown from 45,000 to over 50,000. The over-a-month-long delay is now being processed by the county, with expectations that the backlog will not impede the election.
The Bexar County third-party vendor VOTEC — responsible for processing voter applications — announced in August that it will cease operations. Just last year, VOTEC put Texas clients on notice that they would be administering a 35% surcharge for services to keep the company afloat. Now, the California-based VR company, which is one of three companies approved to manage voter registration data in Texas, is shutting down.
This announcement caused Bexar County to swiftly pivot to the state’s Texas Election Administration Management System as a replacement for processing voter registration applications. This software is typically used in smaller counties and has struggled to process the large quantity of voter applications in Bexar County.
Because TEAMS lacks the essential tools for processing and holding large applications, Bexar County’s 1.25 million registered voters cannot be stored. Texas has since upgraded TEAMS; however, this upgrade will not be available to counties until July, which is not in time for the Nov. 4 election.
“The state does not have all of our street indexes or our files. We cannot effectively process and put the voter in the correct precinct, which gives them their districts and who they are to vote for, their representatives,” Bexar County Elections Department Manager La Tonia Burton said.
Bexar County is working to remedy this backlog. The county has hired nine new workers to upload data into TEAMS, and the Bexar County Court approved a $1.5 million budget plan to switch to a Florida-based system as an additional safeguard. However, the Florida-based vendor will not be hired in time for early voting, which is set for Oct. 20.
Despite the large backlog, Bexar County Elections Administrator Michele Carew remains optimistic that voter registration applications will be processed before Oct. 20.
“I’m 100% confident that everybody will be processed and every eligible voter will be in the system come the first day of early voting,” Carew said.
Bexar County has been working closely with the Secretary of State to process the 52,000 voter backlog, with the county sharing over 60,000 street addresses to ensure they are captured in the new TEAMS software. In addition to sharing data, a temporary team was assembled to process applications, hoping that 75% of the registration would be completed by the end of Oct. 5.
The November ballot will consist of 17 state amendments and two county propositions. The first proposition would raise taxes on hotel rooms and car rentals to fund the Spurs Arena, and the second proposes renovation to the Frost Bank and surrounding areas using the same tax raise.
Early voting begins Oct. 20, giving Bexar County less than two weeks to process the backlog.
