Worley Watch: New Year Edition

As reported by the Montgomery Advertiser on 31 December 2005, Secretary of State Nancy Worley is now officially out of compliance with a federal mandate that required her office to implement a new statewide voter registration system by 1 January 2006.

Worley's problems in meeting this mandate are legion. They are documented here, here, here, here, and here. For a rough time line of this abysmal failure, go here. As the linked entries show, Worley has as many excuses as she does fingers for why she hasn't been able to meet the federal deadline.

Two of the more interesting sections of the Advertiser article:

Implementing the system stalled because of confusion over licensing agreements and intellectual property rights, officials said. Worley was confident Friday all the details can be ironed out and the system will be up by June.

And then:

"We have an antiquated system because it was not updated technologically on an annual basis."

These passages seem to strongly imply that the state will be purchasing a new voter registration system from an outside vendor.

However, Worley told the U.S. Department of Justice on 9 September 2005 that the current voter registration system (the same one that she tells the Advertiser is antiquated) is substantially compliant with the federal mandate. And although she told the Advertiser the new system would be ready in June 2006, she told the Department of Justice that her staff would have the final updates to the system made so that it would be ready to roll in March 2006. Page 3 of Worley's letter to explains this (page 1, 2, 3; thanks to MCNewbie for the DOJ letter).