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00000175-b317-d35a-a3f7-bbdf00220000This legislative session, public radio stations across Texas are answering voters' questions about the elections. KUT has partnered with Houston Public Media, KERA News in Dallas, San Antonio's Texas Public Radio, Marfa Public Radio and Texas Standard to tackle crowdsourced questions from voters all over the state.

Voter Registration Forms On Texas Secretary Of State Website Were Down For 24 Hours This Weekend

Gabriel C. Pérez
/
KUT
Voters cast ballots during the primary elections in March.

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 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.

In a tweet later Saturday the office said it was redirecting links to a new version of the registration form.

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. 

Matt Largey is the Projects Editor at KUT. That means doing a little bit of everything: editing reporters, producing podcasts, reporting, training, producing live events and always being on the lookout for things that make his ears perk up. Got a tip? Email him at mlargey@kut.org. Follow him on Twitter @mattlargey.
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