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Bexar County commissioners have approved a three-year contract with Florida-based VR Systems for voter registration and elections management software.
Commissioners approved the $2 million software contract on Tuesday to help prevent backlogs in filing voter registration and ballot-by-mail applications with the state as seen before this past November election.
Republican Precinct 3 Commissioner Grant Moody voted no after questioning the expense to taxpayers. He pointed out the county ultimately had a successful November 2025 election using the state's computer system.
"We did not use VR or anyone else in the November 2025 election and will not be using VR in the March ... or the May 26 election," he said.
Democratic Precinct 1 Commissioner Rebecca Clay Flores said at a time when voter rights are being taken away from many minorities, she was happy to spend the money on smooth elections.
"I am so happy to put at least $2 million into this," she told County Elections Administrator Michele Carew. "And if your department needs more to continue to fight against these, then let us know, and I'm happy to support more money for this because it is needed."
County Judge Peter Sakai said he was satisfied with the contract too.
"Remember what we need to do," he said. "We have to protect the voters. We have to make sure we have accurate elections. And we have to protect taxpayers too."
The software will be in place for the November election.
The elections administrator told commissioners it seemed the state's voter registration computer intake would slow as more local registrations were fed into it before this past November election. And she said when local election workers hit 20,000 mail-by-ballot applications filed with the state, the process would suddenly slow down and take 7-10 minutes to file each application.
