AUGUSTA – Despite receiving $17 million in federal money for a town-by-town upgrade of the state’s voter registration system, Maine has missed its Jan. 1 completion deadline and is dropping the software contractor it hired to do the job.

Secretary of State Matt Dunlap acknowledged Wednesday that the contractor would be paid about 12 percent of the value of its $4.5 million contract with the state, or $500,000.

Many states have fewer, county-based voter registration systems. Maine, with 503 towns and distinct voter lists, differs greatly, he said.

In the meantime, computers bought with the federal money are sitting idle in town offices until the system is running.

They’re not likely to be on line by the June primary election, but Dunlap hopes the system will be running by the Nov. 7 general election.

“I’ve had the federal government drumming their fingers asking us where we are on this thing,” Dunlap said.

The state is parting with Covansys Corp., a technology services company based in Farmington Hills, Mich. It was hired to develop a centralized voter registration system to replace Maine’s antiquated system of town-by-town registration.

Michelle Jones, the company’s marketing vice president, declined comment Wednesday.

“It wasn’t working out,” Dunlap said, “and we just weren’t getting where we wanted to be in terms of the quality of the information we were getting out of the system.”

He also said time was an issue. “We had schedule problems right from the start on their part.”

When the centralized voter database is in place and maintained in Augusta, town clerks will be able to access voter registrations in their communities by district, by precinct, by street.

If someone moves, the resident will only need to file a change of address.

Rather than starting over again, the state is negotiating with PCC Technology of Bloomfield, Conn., the subvendor that wrote the software for Covansys. Dunlap said Covansys has agreed to release PCC from its noncompete contract clause so that it can finish the work.

The advantage of staying with PCC is that a lot of the customization has already been done, Dunlap said.

Because voter registration lists are kept only in town offices in Maine, a person conceivably could vote in one community, then register to vote in another community because there is no statewide list to check.

The state wants to be able to cross-check its voter list with state motor vehicle records as well as with vital records to avoid duplication and to remove names of the dead.

The new system was to be in place by Jan. 1.

It is being paid for as part of a nationwide revamping of voting practices. The federal law known as the Help America Vote Act was enacted in 2002, partly in response to the 2000 Florida election debacle, which included disputed punch cards and lengthy recounts.

The Help America Vote Act specified changes in every part of the voting process, from voting machines to provisional ballots, voter registration and poll-worker training.

Maine has received about $17 million in federal funds for its voter registration reform project, and matched it with $611,000.

The money also will pay for voting devices accessible to people with disabilities, including blindness.

A U.S. Justice Department official would not comment Wednesday regarding the Jan. 1 compliance issue.

“We are currently in communication with various states, and we are evaluating each individual state’s situation. At the conclusion of that evaluation, we’ll determine what type of actions, if any, should be taken,” said Eric Holland, the Justice Department spokesman.

In addition to the $500,000 payment to Covansys, the company will receive other funds, not yet determined, for its work on customization and data conversion. The company customized the software and took the old voter lists and installed them onto a new list, Dunlap said.

“You have some municipalities that have their own electronic systems, some which have paper systems, and some where ‘I just happen to know everybody in town’ and everything in between,” Dunlap said.

That data conversion is about 80 percent complete, he said.

Another aspect of the project that has been completed is the purchase of hardware: a computer, printer, scanner, hand scanner and label maker for each municipality that handles voter lists. Dunlap said the towns can use the computers for other business so long as they leave enough memory for voter registration.

In some communities, those computers are sitting idle until the system is operational.

Guilford’s computer is stored on a shelf in the town safe, according to Town Clerk Michelle Nichols.

“I was really hoping it would be ready for the clerks to see what problems we were going to run into and then get them fixed before the gubernatorial race in November,” she said.

Patti Dubois, Bangor city clerk, said she is using the two new computers provided to access the city’s existing voter registration program. “I was a little surprised that the state had put in a significant amount of work with one particular vendor and there were issues that couldn’t be resolved with that vendor. So we’ve kind of taken a few steps back,” she said.

Dunlap said the state depends on the town clerks, “and we take that trust very seriously.”

“So we’re going to make doggone sure that what we have in the end is going to be something that will be a gee-whiz product and not just something to get done for the sake of getting it done so we could say we were in compliance with federal law,” Dunlap said.

“The worst-case scenario is not being out of compliance with federal law,” he said. “The worst-case scenario is having 503 town clerks frantically try to call all at once saying, ‘I can’t let anybody in my town vote because I can’t pull them up on the list.'”