With the registration deadline only three days away, Texans looking for voter-registration forms on the Secretary of State's website this weekend got an error message for nearly a day. Applications for mail-in ballots were also inaccessible. Information about who's running for office this November was also knocked offline.
Service was restored by late Saturday.
The first reports on Twitter came in Friday night.
Texas Online Voter Registration
— Րυɱ૦Ր Һคς ɿ੮ 🏴 (@BrandiLynn4Ever) October 6, 2018
🚨NOT WORKING🚨
Error 503 - Are you kidding me?@BetoORourke @tedcruz @TXsecofstate @Vote @NatlVoterRegDay pic.twitter.com/KjoEUhZvCB
Texas does not have online voter registration, but users trying to request a registration application through a tool on the Secretary of State's website got an error message saying "the service is unavailable". The same error appeared when trying to download the form to fill out an application by hand or to request an application to vote by mail.
The Secretary of State's office acknowledged the problem earlier Saturday in a tweet.
Anyone currently experiencing issues accessing the informal online voter registration page on the Texas SoS web site can still print, complete, and submit the following form to their county voter registrar: https://t.co/YniZ4HpV6A Service will be restored as soon as possible.
— Texas Secretary of State (@TXsecofstate) October 6, 2018
In a tweet later Saturday the office said it was redirecting links to a new version of the registration form.
UPDATE: Our office is still working to restore service for the fillable online voter registration form. In the meantime, links on the SoS web site have been redirected so that all users can access a postage-paid form to print, complete, and mail in: https://t.co/1N5B6DyWJ2
— Texas Secretary of State (@TXsecofstate) October 7, 2018
In an email Saturday evening, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State's office said they are still working on getting the tool that you can fill out online and print a prepared registration back online. That tool was working again by late Saturday night.
"Initial analysis shows no security incident, but we will continue to conduct analysis to find out exactly why the server went down," wrote spokesman Sam Taylor.
In a subsequent email, Taylor wrote that "the statewide voter registration database was not impacted whatsoever — it is on a completely different system."
The deadline to register to vote is looming. Voters must register by the end of Tuesday, Oct. 9.
There are other methods of accessing voter-registration forms, including from county election offices. Applications for ballots by mail, which must be received by local election officials by Oct. 26, are also available from many county election offices.
