Voter registration error triggers

confusion in Maryland

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — A major voter-registration slip-up was sowing confusion in an important primary Tuesday as officials prepared for as many as 80,000 voters to cast provisional ballots that won’t be counted until next week.

State officials were still assessing the fallout from a computer error at the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration.

The problem relates to changes voters made in address and party affiliation on the administration’s website or self-service kiosks, information that wasn’t sent to the state elections board.

“As far as we know it was a failure of MVA to transfer data to us. That is what they are telling us,” said Nikki Charlson, the state elections deputy administrator. “They told us it was a computer-programming error that failed to transfer that subset of data.”

She added that elections officials had not heard of any problems relating to the programing error during the first several hours of voting on Tuesday.

“We haven’t heard of any great push for provisionals today,” Charlson said.

Judge cites substantial

progress in Ferguson reforms

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The federal judge overseeing a reform agreement between Ferguson, Missouri, and the U.S. Department of Justice says she has seen substantial progress in efforts to eliminate bias in the town’s law enforcement system.

U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry on Tuesday heard a quarterly update on progress in Ferguson, where the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in 2014 was a catalyst for the Black Lives Matter movement.

The white officer who shot Brown was not charged, but a Justice Department investigation raised concerns about treatment of poor and black residents by police and the municipal court system. A 2016 consent agreement requires significant changes.

Some residents told the judge progress has been too slow. But Perry cited new policies on police procedures and significant changes in court operations.