According to Lubbock Lights, a software failure that originated with a third‑party vendor’s October 2025 update left more than 8,000 Lubbock County voter registrations incomplete, and roughly 1,000 of those records remain unprocessed just one week before early voting starts on October 19.

County Elections Administrator Troy Havard told the Lubbock County Commissioners Court that the office has processed about 88% of the affected files. The remaining backlog, he said, underscores concerns about the reliability of Texas’s voter registration system and the possibility that eligible voters could be unable to cast counted ballots.

The Commissioners Court unanimously approved a request to seek reimbursement from the Texas Secretary of State for approximately $8,000 in additional expenses, not including overtime. The state set the first day of early voting, October 19, as the deadline for the county to submit its reimbursement claim.

Statewide, the glitch impacted at least 591,000 registration records across 105 counties, representing more than 75% of Texas’s population, according to a September 29 survey cited by The Dallas Morning News. Lubbock’s share—about 8,000 records or roughly 1.35% of the statewide minimum number—places the county among those still working to clear the backlog.

Havard urged residents to verify their registration status at VoteTexas.gov or to contact the Lubbock County Elections Office directly. Voters whose timely registration does not appear on the rolls may be eligible for provisional ballots, pending verification under Texas law. With early voting slated to begin on October 19, the county must finish processing the remaining records while awaiting the state’s reimbursement decision.

Sources: lubbocklights.com