The facts
Six months before Texas counties were buried under a last-minute avalanche of backlogged voter registration records, the state already knew its portal was losing them. A state lawmaker flagged the problem in March, and the Department of Public Safety acknowledged that a "programming change" had prevented the processing of nearly 1,000 voter registration applications and updates submitted between December and February. The agency assured state Sen. Donna Campbell's office, which had raised the issue on behalf of a constituent, that the error had been resolved.
The error was not resolved. In July, voting rights advocates with the Texas Civil Rights Project wrote to DPS and the Secretary of State's Office about the same failing portal, saying Texas voters had shown up at recent elections believing they had successfully updated their voter registration on the DPS website, only to discover their registration was not updated. Both agencies waved it off. DPS told the group that technical issues are promptly resolved, and the secretary of state's office said it receives files of voter registration records daily from DPS and sends them to local election officials, and that it was following state and federal laws.
Then came the catastrophe both agencies had been warned about. Both now blame an October 2025 software update to the DPS portal by vendor Deloitte for the current backlog: at least 500,000 backlogged voter registration records were finally sent to county election officials last week, with the Nov. 3 midterm election only weeks away. Counties are scrambling to process them; Dallas alone had nearly 70,000 records. Voters who show up unregistered will be offered provisional ballots, which require extra steps to confirm their eligibility before those ballots can be counted. The Secretary of State's Office had tested its new TEAM registration system with the DPS portal before a July 2025 launch, but neither agency answered questions about whether they tested the systems again before the October 2025 update.
The excuses have been a masterclass in buck-passing. In a September call with county officials, Christina Adkins, the secretary of state's elections division director, described "a little frustration" because her office had "made inquiries, expressed concerns" to DPS related to complaints about the portal and "had been assured that there were no problems." When the backlog finally landed, she said "it was quite the surprise". Spokesperson Alicia Pierce said the office is "laser-focused on helping counties process these registrations". DPS, for its part, said "Additional controls are now in place between DPS and the SOS to confirm that complete information has been sent and received, so this cannot be replicated in the future".
William Furney, 29, a voter from North Texas, moved from Collin to Dallas County in October 2025, checked "yes" to register on the DPS portal, and got a receipt and his new license in the mail. At the March primary he learned he was not on the voter list and was offered a provisional ballot. He spent about an hour at the polling site; weeks later the county told him his ballot was not accepted. "It was so frustrating to have to go through all that process just to be told my vote wouldn’t count because I wasn’t registered", he said. "It just kind of illustrates the technical incompetence of Texas state government."
Our take
Let's get one thing straight: this isn't a surprise. This is the predictable, rancid outcome of a government full of cowards and liars being told their shit is broken and responding with a shrug and a lie. They were warned in fucking March. They were warned again in July. Each time, some useless prick at DPS or the Secretary of State's office waved their hand and said, 'All fixed, no problems here,' like a mechanic spraying Febreze on a smoking engine. They are professional-grade bullshitters, and now half a million Texans might get fucked out of voting because of it.
Christina Adkins, the elections division director, deserves a special fucking medal for her performance. She described having 'a little frustration' after her office was 'assured that there were no problems.' When the 500,000 missing registrations finally landed, she called it 'quite the surprise.' A surprise? You were told the system was losing votes, you did fuck-all, and then it lost half a million more. That's not a surprise, you absolute cunt, that's a direct consequence of your negligent, lazy, do-nothing approach to your job. Calling it a surprise is like a pilot being surprised the plane crashed after he ignored all the 'engine on fire' alarms.
The technical incompetence is so profound it's almost artistic. They gave people receipts. A voter moves, checks 'yes' to register, gets a nice little receipt and a new license in the mail. It's all a beautiful, polished lie. Behind that shiny portal, nothing happened. The application vanished into a digital asshole. It's a con job. The state of Texas is running a voter registration scam on its own citizens. William Furney did everything right, got his receipt, spent an hour voting provisionally, and then was told his ballot was thrown in the trash. The state's message is clear: 'Thanks for playing, sucker.'
And now, after setting democracy on fire, the arsonists are proudly showing off their new bucket. DPS says, 'Additional controls are now in place... so this cannot be replicated.' You incompetent dickheads. You're bragging that you've now decided to check if the data you're supposed to send actually gets sent? That was your job the whole time! That's like a chef announcing he's now going to start cooking the food after the third customer gets raw chicken. You don't get a cookie for doing the bare minimum six months and two warnings too late.
The whole operation is a monument to cowardly buck-passing. They blame a vendor update they can't confirm they tested. They point fingers at each other. They use words like 'laser-focused' while staring at a five-alarm fire they were warned about repeatedly. This is the government equivalent of seeing your dog shit on the rug every day for a year and being 'quite surprised' when you step in it. They are useless. They are liars. And they just shit all over the foundational act of democracy because they couldn't be bothered to do their fucking jobs.
