Bexar County is once again processing new voter registrations, after a months-long delay caused a backlog of 52,000 registrations to wait in limbo.
Early voting starts Oct. 20 for the Nov. 4 election. The voter registration deadline is Oct. 6.
Elections Administrator Michele Carew told reporters Monday that all outstanding applications will be processed before then, and new voters should receive their registration card in the mail before Election Day.
Bexar County is among a number of counties scrambling to move onto the state’s voter registration system, called TEAM, after a popular private vendor, Votec, could no longer do the work.
The transition has been rocky, however, because the Secretary of State’s office is rolling out a major update to its system at the same time it is absorbing the old Votec clients.
“Technical issues are to be expected with a rollout of this size, and that is why we chose this constitutional election cycle for this transition,” the Secretary of State’s office told Votebeat.
While most of the state has little on its ballot this November, Bexar County is voting on a pair of big-ticket ballot initiatives, Props. A and B, that could decide the future of a new downtown Spurs arena and East Side rodeo grounds.
It also had one the biggest backlogs of unprocessed registrations among the counties rolling over, according to Votebeat.
Carew said Monday that she didn’t see any evidence Props. A and B were drawing a rush of new voter interest.
Rather, a normal amount of new registrations stacked up into a big backlog because the state system had stopped accepting them for its TEAM update, and then weeks later, Votec also went down.
“There was a time period where nobody was allowed to put in any type of voter registration to the system,” Carew said. “That snowballed with Votec closing, and that’s when we had to completely halt.”
Texas election officials were all in Austin for a conference right after the Votec news, Carew said, and immediately began huddling with the Secretary of State’s office on a plan for this November.
Bexar County will use the free TEAM system this election, then transfer to a new private vendor, VR Systems, which has some additional features.
Though local leaders have gone to great lengths to avoid using state’s system in the past, Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai said that in this case, they’re lucky for the state’s help.
“They have been engaged, responsive and supportive throughout this process,” he said.
The move entailed sharing data with the state and ensuring all 60,000 Bexar County streets were accounted for in its system, Carew said.
Temporary staff was brought on to work through the backlog at the Bexar County Elections Department, and they’re expected to complete about 75% of the registrations by the end of the week.
