On Texas’ “suspense list”? Bowie County says you can still vote — here’s why 1.2 million voters landed on it

NEW BOSTON, Texas — With more than 1.2 million Texas voters flagged on the state’s “suspense list” ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm election, the Bowie County Elections Office is pushing back on a wave of headlines suggesting those voters have been purged from the rolls.

They haven’t, according to Bowie County Voter Registrar Pat McCoy. A voter on the suspense list is still registered and can still cast a ballot — they may just have to fill out one extra form at the polls.

“We want voters to understand that being on the suspense list does not mean they cannot vote,” McCoy said in a statement Tuesday. “We encourage everyone to verify their registration information now, especially if they have recently moved.”

What the suspense list actually is

The suspense list is an address-verification tool, not a cancellation list. Under the Texas Election Code, a county voter registrar who has reason to believe a voter no longer lives at their registered address must mail that voter a confirmation notice. If the voter doesn’t respond, the registration is placed “in suspense” while the county waits for a corrected address.

The most common trigger is returned mail. Every two years, Texas counties mail a new voter registration certificate to every active voter. If the U.S. Postal Service sends that certificate back as undeliverable — because the voter moved, the address was bad, or the mail simply didn’t get delivered — the county has to try to confirm where the voter lives. Returned jury summonses and other official county mail can do the same thing. So can a tip: a parent calling the registrar to say an adult child has moved out is enough to start the process.

Because the 2026 certificates went out in the months before the March primary, the surge in suspense placements this year is largely the fallout from that mailing.

The Texas Secretary of State’s office has said the current statewide figure — roughly 1.2 million out of more than 18 million registered voters, or about 6.5% — is in line with what the state sees in a typical election cycle. The biggest counts are concentrated in the state’s largest counties: Harris County has nearly 200,000 registrations in suspense, and Bexar County reported more than 153,000.

Bowie County’s numbers are far smaller and, according to McCoy, not unusual. The county typically has about 4,000 voters on its suspense list at any point during the year, he told TXKtoday, and nearly all of them are there because of an address problem — not because of any question about their eligibility.

“We simply are trying to get people to confirm their voter registration status before the election,” McCoy said. “This will save them and us a lot of time.”

So who actually gets removed?

The word “purge” has been thrown around loosely over the past week, and it’s worth separating two different things.

Suspense is not removal. A registration in suspense stays on the rolls. The voter’s record is intact, they appear in the poll book, and they can vote. A suspense registration is only canceled if the voter stays in suspense through two consecutive federal general elections — four years — without ever confirming an address, voting, or otherwise updating their record. A voter who went into suspense this year wouldn’t face cancellation until after the November 2030 election.

Actual cancellations happen for other reasons. Texas counties cancel registrations on a rolling basis for voters who have died, been convicted of a felony, been declared mentally incapacitated by a court, registered twice, or asked to be removed. Monthly cancellation reports published by the Secretary of State break those numbers out by county and by reason.

The one category that has drawn genuine controversy this year is citizenship. Beginning in late 2025 and into 2026, the Secretary of State’s office ran the state’s voter rolls against the federal SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) database and flagged 2,724 registered voters as potential noncitizens, sending those names to county registrars with instructions to request proof of citizenship. Voters who didn’t respond within the statutory window had their registrations canceled.

That process is now the subject of a federal lawsuit. In March, the Campaign Legal Center sued the Secretary of State and several county election officials on behalf of LULAC, Common Cause and other groups, arguing the removals violate the National Voter Registration Act and that the state failed to check its own Department of Public Safety records — which already contained citizenship documentation for many of the flagged voters — before shifting the burden onto the voters themselves.

In late July, state elections director Christina Adkins told county officials that a review of DPS records had confirmed the citizenship of some of the 2,724 flagged voters, and directed counties to immediately reinstate anyone who had been removed despite having proof of citizenship on file with DPS. The state has not said how many of the flagged voters were U.S. citizens or how many registrations were canceled statewide before the reinstatement order.

Bowie County’s exposure to that process was minimal. Three Bowie County voters appeared on the state’s SAVE list, McCoy said. His office verified their information, and none of the three registrations were canceled.

What to do if you’re on the list

Check your status. Go to VoteTexas.gov and click “Am I Registered?” A status of “suspense” means the county needs to confirm your address.

If you still live at the same address, you don’t have to do anything before Election Day, though the county would prefer you confirm now. At the polls, you’ll be asked to sign a Statement of Residence affirming your address, and then you’ll vote a regular ballot.

If you moved within Bowie County, update your address before the Oct. 5 registration deadline. Voters with a Texas driver’s license or ID can do it online through the Secretary of State’s site; you’ll need your license number, the last four of your Social Security number and the Voter Unique Identifier number printed on your registration card. Otherwise, submit a new voter registration application to the Bowie County Voter Registrar. If you miss the deadline, you can still vote by completing a Statement of Residence at the polls — and because Bowie County uses countywide vote centers, you can do that at any polling location in the county.

If you moved to a different county, you generally need to register in the new county by Oct. 5. Voters who miss that deadline may qualify for a “limited ballot” — state and federal races only — but only during early voting at the county’s main early voting location, not on Election Day.

Key dates and contacts

  • Voter registration / address update deadline: Monday, Oct. 5, 2026
  • Early voting begins: Monday, Oct. 19, 2026
  • Election Day: Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026
  • Check registration: VoteTexas.gov — “Am I Registered?”
  • Bowie County Voter Registrar: 903-628-6803
  • Bowie County Elections Office: 903-628-6810 or bowiecounty.org/1239/Elections

Texas residents who aren’t yet registered can pick up an application at any Texas Department of Public Safety office or public library, request one from the Bowie County Elections Office, or print one from VoteTexas.gov to sign and mail.