A Texas DPS system glitch kept tens of thousands of voter applications from reaching counties. Now they have less than a month to catch up.

Texas election offices are digging through a pile of voter registration applications that never reached them, NBC News reports. The secretary of state's office told officials last week that a problem in the Department of Public Safety's system kept certain incomplete applications from being sent on, potentially leaving Texans unregistered or with out-of-date voter files. The backlog began arriving Tuesday. Bexar County received more than 45,000 forms and Travis County more than 35,000. Some may be duplicates, but each takes time, and counties have less than a month before early voting starts Oct. 19. The deadline to register is Oct. 5. "While that number may seem high, the Elections team is already hard at work reviewing every application and will be extending hours to make sure all records are updated well before early voting begins," said Bexar County Elections Administrator Michele Carew. "There's going to be a lot of counties that are paying a lot of overtime," said Chris McGinn of the Texas Association of County Election Officials. A state spokesperson said anyone who believes they registered but isn't on the rolls can cast a provisional ballot, and officials can later search DPS records. Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico called the error "unacceptable." Why it matters at home: you can do everything right and still get lost in someone else's system. If you registered or updated your address through DPS this year, take McGinn's advice and call your local registrar's office before Oct. 5.