Colorado pulled the plug today on its problem-plagued voter registration computer system and will miss a Jan. 1 federal deadline for having it up and running.
Dana Williams, a spokeswoman for Colorado’s secretary of state, said the system had trouble registering voters and other problems.
She said a letter was sent to the data-processing company Accenture canceling the $10.5 million contract.
The state has already spent $1.5 million on the system, she said.
“When we saw these problems, we decided we were not going to throw good money after bad. We’re going to get this fixed as soon as we can,” Williams said.
Accenture spokesman James McAvoy blamed state officials for delays in the project, and added: “If the state had not canceled the contract, there would have been sufficient time to test and pilot the Accenture system and train elections officials in its use.” Adams County Clerk Carol Snyder said the state tried to do too much at one time, setting up a system that would update computers automatically from all agencies involved in elections, from county clerks to the Corrections Department.
Williams said the state may have to settle for a smaller system that would require county clerks and state agencies to submit information on voter registration once a day.
