When Jeffrey Boney went to get his driver’s license renewed in late May, he expected to swipe his credit card for $33 and be on his way. Instead, he was told he needed a passport or birth certificate and had to take an eye exam.
Boney, a candidate for Fort Bend County treasurer and a former four-term council member in Missouri City, said the process took longer than he thought it would and after a trip back to his car to get his glasses for the vision test and proving that he has a passport, he ultimately got his temporary paper license — but he knows not everyone can easily appear in person or has those necessary backup documents.
Boney says he’s concerned that the process is inefficient and it appears that multiple government agencies aren’t communicating with each other.
“Why would I need a passport to renew my driver’s license when I’ve been driving since I was a teenager?” Boney asked. “Why would they need to verify my citizenship? I’ve been a citizen of the United States for 52 years. I’ve been a Texas resident for 52 years. Why is that not in the computer?”
Boney says that if people can’t renew their driver’s licenses, it’s ultimately is going to make it more difficult to register to vote. A voter registration card can be obtained through other means of identification but a valid driver’s license is the most common.
“Not everybody has a passport,” Boney said. “Not everybody can afford a passport. Some people have never traveled outside their city, let alone the country. Now let’s talk about the birth certificate. If you require me to have a birth certificate, I have to go to a Texas agency to request my birth certificate and pay for it. Why can’t you, as the Texas Department of Public Safety, cross-reference information with another Texas agency? Why do I have to do that? It shouldn’t be that difficult.”
Boney says he’s heard of some people being turned away because they produced an expired passport, but he argues that if they were once able to obtain one, they’ve proven their citizenship.
The Missouri City resident isn’t the only one who has been frustrated recently with the ramped-up renewal requirements. Texans used to be able to renew their licenses online, and still can, but they’re required to come in person if they completed the process online during their last renewal cycle, are older than 79 years old or have outstanding warrants.
Dozens of Reddit threads show Texans complaining about the long wait times and the number of documents needed.
“I have a passport. I have access to my birth certificate,” Boney said. “There are some people, maybe older folks, maybe some who have come from a different state, who don’t have those things. Some people may have been born overseas to a military parent and they moved to America after the parent got out of the military. How do I go about getting a birth certificate if I was born in Germany?”
Some Texans recently inquired about whether Texas DPS offices were scanning irises during vision tests. While the Iris ID technology is used in government offices, the DPS claims that it’s strictly for criminal investigations and border security. The driver’s license office uses photos and thumbprints for biometrics.
NPR reported on May 27 that the Department of Homeland Security awarded a $25 million no-bid contract for iris scanners to be used for gathering biometric data from ICE detainees. Distrust of the federal government, however, has led some to believe that the technology is being used to add information of protesters and immigrants to a database without their consent and when they haven’t committed a crime.
Marianna Poyares, a researcher at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law, told NPR that sometimes biometrics are used simply for identification, such as when someone passes through airport security. The implications change, however, when considering how sensitive information is stored, shared and monitored.
In February 2025, Iris ID announced a partnership with Texas DPS in which more than 200 Iris ID cameras were added to DPS Livescan systems. “This further cements the growing popularity and efficacy of iris recognition technology for law enforcement, criminal justice agencies, and their partners,” Iris ID officials said in a press release. “As a biometric, iris recognition is deemed the most accurate modality over either fingerprint or facial recognition, and is second only to DNA.”
Boney emphasized that he’s not a conspiracy theorist and doesn’t have any reason to believe that the government is collecting personal data from people’s eye tissue while they’re getting their driver’s licenses renewed. In fact, he says, the various government agencies don’t appear to have any communication with each other. He suggested that the DPS, voter registrar and county clerk should all be able to access the information they need to do their jobs by typing a Social Security number into a computer or using the biometric thumbprints.
He says he’s concerned that the more rigorous process appears to discriminate against low-income people and senior citizens. “The easiest thing to do is to have all of these departments working with one another,” he said. “Why do you put the burden on the citizens?”
The Houston Press reported in December that the federal government was pre-emptively thwarting immigrants from getting identification cards and simultaneously creating an inconvenience for legally documented residents by requiring a birth certificate or passport when renewing a Texas driver’s license.
A federal law has been in place since the 9/11 terrorist attacks requiring states to verify identity and lawful status for a REAL ID, which features a gold seal and is necessary for domestic flights and entrance to secure federal buildings.
REAL IDs have been issued in Texas since at least 2016 so most Texans have one and were not required to produce a birth certificate to get it. Prior to that, a policy had been in place since 2008 that residents must prove they’re in the country legally when applying for a driver’s license or state ID. A state law to that effect was passed in 2011.
However, dozens of Houston-area residents who have recently renewed their licenses can’t remember ever having to produce a birth certificate or passport in the past.
The Texas DPS website points out that the law requiring residents to prove they’re legal citizens isn’t a new one but “stricter enforcement of existing REAL ID Act requirements means Texans born at home without records, like some older residents, are now finding they need official documentation to prove identity and lawful presence for renewal.”
For those who tend to be a bit more skeptical, the difficulty renewing a driver’s license and a Republican-led effort to implement the SAVE Act, which would require a passport or birth certificate to register to vote, signal that some lawmakers want to control who is able to cast ballots.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican seeking to be re-elected to an unprecedented fourth term in November, has said that Harris County is terrible at running elections, prompting some local Democrats to speculate that a potential state takeover is in the works. Neil Aquino, founder of the Houston Democracy Project, is convinced that Abbott is planning to “take our Harris County ballot boxes in November.”
The seemingly abrupt resignation of Secretary of State Jane Nelson last week also raised suspicion. Nelson, a longtime Republican state senator, was appointed by Abbott in 2023 to oversee elections. She quit her job five months before important midterm races that will determine whether Republicans will continue holding the majority in Congress.
Nelson’s office came under fire last year for using the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database to verify the citizenship status of registered voters. A review identified 2,724 potential noncitizens on the voter roll, but county election officials later determined that some of the flagged voters were actually citizens after all, according to the Texas Tribune. Some of the flagged voters had registered through the DPS, where they were required to show proof of citizenship.
Voting rights groups sued the state, claiming the SAVE database is inaccurate and could lead to the disenfranchisement of eligible voters. “They also argued the state should have checked DPS records before sending the list of potential noncitizens to county election officials for investigation,” according to the Tribune article. “Last month, Nelson’s office asked DPS to check the entire list of potential noncitizens against its driver’s license records. The lawsuits are still pending in federal court.”
Sen. Molly Cook, D-Houston, said in a social media video on June 4 that “it appears the governor of Texas has fired the secretary of state with the intention of putting someone in that role without having to go through the Senate confirmation process.”
“That’s super suspicious,” Cook said. “Secretary Nelson hasn’t been perfect in this role. In fact, she willingly handed over sensitive data about the 18.4 million voters in Texas to Trump’s Department of Justice earlier this year. But this resignation is sudden, unexpected and concerning.”
Nelson’s resignation is effective on July 17, and because of the tight timeline before the November 3 midterms, Abbott doesn’t have to get Senate approval to appoint a replacement, Cook said. The governor has publicly thanked Nelson for her service and has not indicated who he’ll appoint to fill the role.
Boney pointed out that while Harris County elections have been criticized by Abbott and Republican lawmakers for years, Fort Bend County may also be on the radar.
During the May 26 primary runoff elections, Fort Bend County officials reported that a poll worker uploaded the wrong document to the voter check-in software, which created a bug and hindered voting operations for about three hours. Boney says he believes the technical error was an accident but it shouldn’t have happened.
He says he’s deeply concerned about the upcoming midterm elections.
“We have a serious issue,” he said. “We need a coordinated effort to make sure every registered voter has what they need to renew their license before voter registration deadlines and early voting begins. This is too important to ignore.”
