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Bexar County commissioners on Tuesday voted to move forward on a new voter registration system.
The county's previous voter registration system—Votech—went out of business, and there have been problems integrating with the state's similar system called TEAM or Texas Election Administration Management system.
TEAM is used by all but the largest of Texas counties. But in addition to Bexar County, Travis County has had issues with integration too.
Among other functions, such a system is needed for a county elections administrator to process voter registrations to quickly examine signatures on mail-in ballots.
Meanwhile, there is a backlog of 34,000 Bexar County voters waiting to be registered.
So Bexar County commissioners have voted to acquire the VR Systems solution to tackle the issue.
Precinct 4 County Commissioner Tommy Calvert urged the other commissioners to vote for VR Systems.
"I just see this as a very important tool to keep our elections department processing the registrations and all those groups we've supported financially with voter registration activity," he said. "Their work is for naught, and we risk liability at getting a lawsuit against us at this very moment."
Precinct 3 County Commissioner Grant Moody—the lone Republican on the court— voted no on the VR Systems solution. He said he expects the county will join the state system by the November elections and does not see the need for the $2 million investment in another system now.
