Voting rights groups sue Texas over DPS voter registration error

Key Points:

• Voting rights groups, including the League of Women Voters of Texas and MOVE Texas Civic Fund, have sued Texas over the failure to process more than 500,000 voter registration applications submitted through the Texas Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) online portal.
• The lawsuit alleges that Texas violated a 2021 settlement requiring a reliable online voter registration system through DPS’s driver’s license portal, citing a software error and ongoing issues with the Texas Secretary of State’s registration system that caused significant delays.
• Plaintiffs seek a court order compelling DPS and the Secretary of State’s Office to maintain a functioning registration process, provide documentation of failures, and prove compliance within a month, arguing the state breached the settlement by failing to ensure simultaneous voter registration during driver license transactions.
• The dispute traces back to lawsuits starting in 2016 over Texas’s lack of online voter registration, culminating in the 2021 settlement that mandated the state maintain the online registration system, with provisions allowing further legal action if systemic failures occur.
• DPS and Secretary of State officials have yet to respond publicly, and a judge will determine if the recent registration failures constitute a breach of the 2021 agreement ahead of the critical November 3 midterm election.