'Election interference' alarm bells ring as 600k voters impacted by computer 'glitch'

Nearly 600,000 Texas voters were impacted by what The New York Times described as a computer “glitch” days before early voting begins, and critics quickly raised alarms about possible “election interference” in a state with a fiercely competitive Senate race.

According to a lawsuit filed by voting rights groups last week, nearly 600,000 online voter registrations in Texas dating back to October 2025 weren’t properly processed by state officials. While county election officials say the backlog of online voter registrations has mostly been cleared, election workers were sent “scrambling” to process them ahead of the state’s early voting period, which begins Monday, the Times reported.

Democratic Texas House candidate Sara McGee, who’s running to represent Texas’ 132nd District near Houston, alleged the computer error was no accident.

“This was NOT a mistake. This was a deliberate voter suppression tactic that was deployed with the hopes that no one would notice,” McGee said in a statement published on social media. “DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS.”

The Senate race in Texas has Republicans on edge as Democratic nominee James Talarico continues to lead in the polls against his Republican opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. While a Democrat hasn’t won a statewide race in the Lone Star State since 1994, a new poll published Wednesday showed Talarico leading Paxton by nearly 4 points.

“It should not surprise you that the state Attorney General has not intervened to ensure that these are processed before Monday,” wrote Adam Cochran, an independent journalist and adjunct professor of information science at Conestoga College in Ontario, Canada. “That’s because the state AG is Ken Paxton and he very much wants election interference.”

McGee called for immediate action to be taken to ensure every Texas voter impacted by the computer error was eligible to vote by Monday, as well as a post-midterm election probe into what caused the issue.

“First: We need an immediate influx of help to get these registrations processed before Monday. Second: We need a ROBUST process to ensure that anyone who votes using a provisional ballot is able to track and confirm that their vote was tallied,” McGee continued.

“Third: We MUST vote in numbers that exceed the suppression gap. Fourth: Once the election is over, I want to see an immediate investigation launched into who knew what and when - starting with the question of why the state’s top election official (Sec. of State) abruptly resigned only a couple of months before this election, only to be replaced by Greedy [Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s] handpicked election-denying, tin-foil-hat-wearing lackey?”