Nearly 600,000 people in Texas had their voting registration delayed due to a computer glitch. Now state election workers are trying frantically to register them before early voting starts on Monday in one of the country’s most consequential electoral battlegrounds.
A lawsuit filed by two voting rights groups, the League of Women Voters Texas and Move Texas Civic Fund, alleges that a software update initiated by the Texas Department of Public Safety malfunctioned, leaving 600,000 new voters unprocessed. They also claim that the voter registration program had long had issues even before the software malfunction. The lawsuit names Republican Secretary of State Robert S. Howden, the Department of Public Safety, and DPS Director Freeman F. Martin as defendants.
“Since at least October 2025, Defendants have breached and continue to breach the contract by failing to maintain the procedures that ensure simultaneous online voter registration with driver license renewal or change of address transactions,” the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit states that people who registered to vote while applying for their license between October 2025 and February 2026 were affected, with their information never actually recorded. The groups are requesting that a judge activate a 2021 settlement agreement that allows Texans to register to vote online with a driver’s license.
The Texas DPS has declined to comment.
The fact that this is all happening in Texas makes this situation particularly urgent. While voter registration issues anywhere present a genuine constitutional threat, it’s especially alarming in Texas—a state where a Democrat has a real chance to win the Senate for the first time in over 30 years. The race between embattled MAGA Republican Ken Paxton and populist Democrat James Talarico is incredibly close, and a win for Talarico would deliver a crippling blow to President Trump and the national GOP in the process. If this massive voter registration malfunction isn’t remedied by November 3, it will present any outcome with real issues of legitimacy.