State voter system takes a messy U-turn

[Thom Little]

The state has hit a snag in its drive to develop a centralized voter registration system - indeed, Secretary of State Gigi Dennis recently fired the contractor who was putting it together. Even so, she expects the delay will be brief, and we hope she's right - Colorado is missing a federal deadline, and the system is supposed to be available for next year's elections.

Having said that, caution is certainly in order here, given problems the state has had in modernizing its computer systems.

Colorado will miss the Jan. 1 federal deadline for the voter system, but we don't find that particularly worrisome so long as the state meets its next target - Dennis hopes to have the voter system ready to test by April 2006 for use in the August primaries. Spokeswoman Dana Williams said quick implementation is possible by creating a "bottom-up" system instead of the "top-down" system that the fired contractor was trying to develop. A bottom-up system takes county voter registration data and feeds it into a new state system. "The top-down system would have replaced what counties are using," said Williams. "Instead, we will use what counties currently have."

Making the state system compatible with different systems from dozens of counties doesn't sound simple to us, but Williams says state officials will explore all options before making a final decision.


http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_3269893