The backlog has left tens of thousands of applications in limbo since July, when county officials said it was forced to pause processing.
SAN ANTONIO — Bexar County elections officials are working urgently to clear a backlog of more than 52,000 voter registration applications, just weeks before a major election that includes 17 proposed state constitutional amendments and a local venue tax measure.
The backlog has left tens of thousands of applications in limbo since July, when county officials said it was forced to pause processing.
“We just started today working through the backlog,” said Michele Carew, the Bexar County elections administrator, on Monday. “Each one of those applications can take from seconds to minutes.”
The county brought on eight temporary workers to help tackle the large volume of applications. Carew said there were a couple of reasons for the backlog.
“The state asked us to stop processing applications on July 2. Because they were rolling out their new TEAM system,” she said. “So, there was a time period that nobody could put any voting registration in the system. “That snowballed into VOTEC closing, and that’s when we had to completely halt operations,” Carew said.
Earlier this month, in previous KENS 5 reporting: Alicia Pierce, Assistant Secretary of State for communications, acknowledged the challenges statewide.
“This is an unprecedented situation. This vendor abruptly shut off their services, disrupting the voter registration functions of 23 Texas counties,” Pierce said. “Of those, 14 have requested to join the TEAM system, and we are working as diligently as possible to onboard those counties ahead of the November election. At the same time, we are trying to support our 230 counties who are in the process of migrating to the Team 2.0 system.”
Over the weekend, Bexar County officially transitioned to the TEAM system, after weeks of daily data sharing and coordination with the Texas Secretary of State’s Office.
“What took so long is we had to share data with them on a daily basis, all day every day, for weeks upon weeks,” Carew said. “I am very confident that everything will be in place the way it needs to be for this upcoming election.”
Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai echoed that confidence.
“We are doing our very best to make sure that every eligible voter who registers on time by October 6 is going to be able to vote,” Sakai said.
Carew said the county expects to have 80 percent of the applications processed by the end of this week. Voters who submitted registration applications during this period should receive their voter registration cards within the next 30 days.
County officials said they are also still in negations talks with VR Solutions, which is a private vendor. This would be in addition to the state’s TEAM system. Carew said the VR system is a more robust election system.
“We have to keep our options open,” Carew said. “We are not saying that we are not staying with TEAM, what we are saying is that we are doing the best that we can to ensure that the Bexar County voters are getting everything they need from this department.”
In addition to statewide constitutional amendments, Bexar County voters will weigh in on a proposed tourist’s tax increase to fund a new Spurs arena, along with upgrades to the Frost Bank Center and Freeman Coliseum.
Key Dates:
- Voter registration deadline: Oct. 6
- Early voting begins: Oct. 20
- Election Day: Nov. 5
For more information on how to check your registration status or update your voter information, visit VoteTexas.gov.