Three civil rights organizations have sued Texas Secretary of State Robert Howden and Texas Department of Public Safety Director Freeman F. Martin. The groups want the state to provide records on delays in processing more than 500,000 voter registration applications. The case is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. The NAACP, its Texas chapter and the Texas chapter of LULAC allege violations of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, according to the story. Bradley Heard, deputy legal director for voting rights litigation at the Southern Poverty Law Center, represents the plaintiffs.
Heard said his clients sent their records request on October 8 and asked for a response by October 22. He said the state later indicated it would not provide a cost estimate until November 6. Separately, a technical error created a backlog of 15,000 unprocessed registrations as of October 16, according to the story.
Alicia Pierce, assistant secretary of state for communications, said the office cannot comment on the lawsuit. She said Texas counties have cleared the backlog and that the office does not know of any counties with pending applications when early voting began. Pierce also said voters registered through DPS online services who do not appear on the rolls can still cast provisional ballots.