Colorado pulled the plug Wednesday on a voter registration computer system and will miss a Jan. 1 federal deadline for having the system up and running, The Associated Press has learned.

Dana Williams, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Gigi Dennis, said the computer system had problems registering voters and other problems. She said a letter was sent Wednesday to Accenture canceling the $10.5 million contract. Williams said the state has already spent $1.5 million on the system.

"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 key delays, including decisions on software and hardware, access to data and information needed to hook up various state agencies...