A federal court in San Antonio has dismissed a lawsuit by three civil rights organizations against Texas Secretary of State Robert Howden and Texas Department of Safety (DPS) Director Freeman F. Martin. The suit, which demanded the state hand over records related to delays in processing more than 500,000 voter registration applications.
"We're deeply disappointed by today's ruling, particularly the Court's apparent dismissal of the very real harm that Texas's withholding of voter-registration records is causing to organizations working to protect their members' voting rights. We sought these records precisely because they would help us determine where Texas's acknowledged registration failures may still be affecting voters—and where to focus our limited resources before Election Day,” said Bradley Heard, deputy legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which represents the plaintiffs.
The lawsuit, which came amid concerns about votes being counted in this year's unusually competitive statewide elections, was “dismissed without prejudice for lack of standing.” Heard said the SPLC is considering its next steps.
“It's deeply troubling to suggest that organizations must first identify the very voters and communities they need these records to find. That reasoning threatens to turn the NVRA [National Voter Registration Act of 1993] public disclosure requirement into a right that exists on paper but is nearly impossible to enforce when it matters most,” Heard said. “Our priority remains protecting the right of every eligible Texan to have their vote counted.”
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the NAACP’s Texas chapter, and the Texas chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) alleged violations of the NVRA, commonly known as the "Motor Voter law," following reports that more than half a million voter registration transactions were not transmitted to counties for processing until late September 2026.
A different technical error led to a fresh backlog of 15,000 unprocessed registrations as of October 16, three days before the start of early voting for the midterm elections.
Alicia Pierce, assistant secretary of state for communications, said the office cannot comment on the lawsuit, but she did issue a statement affirming that Texas counties have cleared the backlog.
"We don't know of any counties that had pending applications by the start of early voting," Pierce said.
Heard said, if the backlog has been cleared up, the state should have no problem producing the records his clients have asked for.
"We want the data that backs that up," Heard said. "When did you do it? How many registrations have been processed? Where have they been processed? That type of thing."
Heard said the Secretary of State's Office failed to respond to his clients request in a timely manner that would have allowed them to engage in voter outreach in advance of the election.
"We sent our request on October 8," Heard said, "shortly after the close of registration. And we had asked for them to supply us with a response by within 10 business days, which would have been October 22. They declined to do so, and when they responded to us, they indicated that they would not even give us an estimate of the cost of responding until November 6, which is three days after the election, and obviously that’s not acceptable."
Alicia Pierce said that, if a voter registered through DPS online services did not appear on the rolls, they will still be able to cast a provisional ballot.
"Election officials have an established method with DPS to check the transaction," Pierce said. "If that voter did register through DPS, the vote will be counted."
For Heard, that's not reassuring.
"They are complying with federal law to the extent that they’re offering provisional ballots in that instance," Heard said, "but what we know — and what our clients know — from years of dealing with provisional ballots is that they can often be rejected and that they are they are a backstop, but they’re not a complete substitution for a ballot that is cast and counted a regular ballot that is cast and counted on Election Day."
Editor’s Note: This article was updated on Oct. 29 after a judge dismissed the lawsuit.
Copyright 2026 Houston Public Media News 88.7