Houston, TX – Texas state officials say a paperwork backlog could cause delays or hassles for recently registered Texas voters who try to cast ballots during the early voting period that begins Monday.
Thousands of Texans who registered just before the October 6 deadline will likely find their names missing from official voter lists. They will be allowed to cast ballots but may have to fill out special forms at polling stations or wait a few days before voting.
Officials blamed a late rush of registration applications to beat the deadline and maintenance to a computer database of Social Security numbers for the potential problems.
About 70 employees in the voter registrar's office in Houston were planning to work through the weekend to clear a backlog of about 30,000 applications. About 7,000 applications from Harris County residents could require extra verification and probably won't be cleared before Monday, the first of 12 days of early voting.