A lawsuit seeking state records on Texas' backlog of delayed voter registrations has been thrown out days before Tuesday's election.
A federal court in San Antonio dismissed the case against Secretary of State Robert Howden and Department of Public Safety Director Freeman F. Martin without prejudice, finding the plaintiffs lacked standing, Houston Public Media reported in an update Thursday. Because the dismissal is without prejudice, the claims could be filed again.
The NAACP, its Texas branch and Texas LULAC sued under the National Voter Registration Act, the federal "Motor Voter" law. They pointed to reports that upward of 500,000 registration transactions made through DPS did not reach county election offices until late September. A separate software problem left about 15,000 registrations unprocessed as of Oct. 16, three days before early voting began.
Bradley Heard, whose organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center, is representing the groups, said they were "deeply disappointed" and are considering what to do next. He said the records would have shown where registration failures might still be affecting voters, and that the court's reasoning would require groups to identify affected voters before they can get the records meant to find them.
Heard said the groups asked for the records on Oct. 8 and wanted a reply within 10 business days. The state, he said, would not estimate the cost of producing them until Nov. 6, three days after the election.
