Despite delays, a computerized statewide voter registration system will be on track for local spring elections, experts say.

Wisconsin has faced difficulties in the federally mandated Statewide Voter Registration System (SVRS) recently, but according to Wisconsin State Election Board Public Information Officer Kyle Richmond, the system should be ready for a test run during local spring elections.

Though larger cities like Green Bay, Madison, Milwaukee and La Crosse already have computerized systems in place, rural areas were not required to have such systems until now.

"A lot of areas of the state have never had voter registration per se," Richmond said. "[I]f you voted out in a township, they just recognized you, made sure they know who you were, made sure you were on the list, and then you voted."

Wisconsin has operated under the most localized system of elections in the country, Richmond said. This means instead of dealing with individual counties, as some other states do, Wisconsin is in the process of setting up a registry system that works with the 1,850 municipalities in the state.

Wisconsin has received $51 million in funding from the federal government's Help America Vote Act for the implementation of the SVRS.

However, the company contracted for $13.9 million to develop Wisconsin's SVRS, Accenture, has been criticized heavily for its troubles with designing registry software and other past problems in Wisconsin.

"Accenture has had a bad track record with other projects in Wisconsin with either delays or cost overruns, and so a number of us thought that that might happen again," said State Sen. Mark Pocan, D-Madison.

Many say the need for the SVRS is clear, as it will address election fraud concerns previously left unaddressed.

"There was no way for a clerk in a neighboring county to see if you weren't registered in two places on the same day and you drove across county lines and maybe voted in two county board races," Richmond said.

The system is being rolled out in a lengthy process, which divided Wisconsin into 12 regions and will implement the SVRS into each one.

Dane County was chosen as the first, or pilot, county in which to implement this program.

"Dane County went live on the 11th of October after a couple weeks of training with the voter registration piece … Madison is going to go live next week on the whole thing," Richmond said, adding Madison was kept separate because it already had a computerized system in place.

After the system has completed its rollout in Dane County, other regions in Wisconsin will begin to implement the system, Richmond said.

Officials hope that the system will be fully in place by mid-April, in time to be tested during local spring elections where voter turnout is usually 10 to 15 percent.

Provided it goes as scheduled, this spring testing process should allow system bugs to be worked out and election officials to become familiar with the software before the fall congressional and gubernatorial elections, where voter turnout is expected to be much higher.

"If we had to test it in the fall elections, that would be very bad," Pocan said. "That would be a very busy election to have potential snafus of voter lists or other problems."