Overview
- Nelson announced her resignation on Tuesday with an effective date of July 17, ending three and a half years as Texas’ chief elections and business filings official.
- By law Gov. Greg Abbott must promptly nominate a successor and the Texas Senate must confirm that pick, leaving the office without a permanent head during the runup to November elections.
- Nelson’s tenure included sharing the full statewide voter roll with the U.S. Department of Justice and using the federal SAVE database to flag about 2,724 possible noncitizen registrants, actions that have produced at least two active lawsuits by voting rights groups.
- County election officials have repeatedly reported functionality problems with the overhauled TEAM voter registration and election management system and have pressed Nelson’s office for fixes that remain unresolved.
- Nelson also pushed agency modernization, overseeing seven statewide elections with roughly 27 million ballots, growing business filers past 3 million and launching the Texas Express expedited filing service, and her successor will need to balance continuing those upgrades with resolving the legal and operational disputes that affect county operations and voter confidence.