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Voter registration in limbo
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by Jessi Polsky
Friday, August 31, 2007
The Wisconsin State Elections Board is in the midst of a heated contract dispute with Accenture, the company hired to develop the statewide computerized voting system, SVRS.
The Help America Vote Act — passed in the wake of the 2000 presidential election controversy in Florida — requires all states to have a voter registration system.
“As of the first of January 2006, we were supposed to have a voter registration database that centralized all voters in one spot,” said Kyle Richmond, public officer for the Wisconsin State Elections board.
Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, said last week the system remains incomplete.
“Accenture was supposed to have a working computerized voter registration system … [and] it is more than a year and a half past deadline,” McCabe said. “We still don’t have a completed statewide voter registration list.”
The state of Wisconsin, McCabe said, already paid Accenture over $9 million and should withhold the final $2 million payment until the system is working properly.
“The system has delays and all kinds of glitches and problems,” McCabe said. “Accenture says the project is done and wants final payment … but the product doesn’t work properly.”
Over 300 clerks, McCabe added, have outstanding requests for system repairs.
“Currently, if local clerks try to print out absentee ballots, sometimes the system generates absentee ballots for different communities.”
But Accenture says they completed the voter registration system as promised.
“Accenture continues to fulfill all contractual obligations," Accenture spokesperson Peter Soh said in an e-mail to The Badger Herald. "SVRS has been successfully used in the last six elections in Wisconsin."
Prior to the federal mandate, Wisconsin did not have a statewide voter registration system, Richmond said.
“Municipalities had their own databases, but there were large parts of the state that prior to this list did not have voter registration at all,” Richmond said.
Wisconsin, Richmond added, only required areas with populations over 5,000 to compile voter registration lists.
Although statewide voter registration is a good idea, it is not necessary for Wisconsin, McCabe added.
“I don’t think it’s an essential thing to have,” McCabe said. “I don’t think [Wisconsin] would have taken on this project if not for the federal mandate.”
Anonymous (August 31, 2007 @ 9:44am):
Nothing new here. Same old Accenture and same old posture on their part. What is sad is that Kevin Kennedy knew full well of Accenture's lack of a decent track record in the voter registration field. He knew that states such as Wyoming and Kansas and Colorado canceled their contracts with Accenture. Yet he went ahead anyway, and now the delays and problems, as predicted, have come try. Sad sad.
Anonymous (August 31, 2007 @ 3:52pm):
Why do we always have these arguments?
The system should perform according to the specifications specified and agreed to by both parties; ie the "contract".
This looks like possibly someone trying to get work done that wasn't specified in the contract. Personally, I'd be suprised the state advanced 9 Mil without receiving timely deliverables.
It's always easy for a client to complain against a contractor and ruin his reputation while it's hard for a contractor to do the same if he wants more work from that client, in this case the state government.
Here, we have a contractor who claims the work is done. I'd suppose he has a firm grip on his contract and a list of completed deliverables matching the contract specs.
We have a client who claims the work is not done. List the work that is not done and find out where it is specified in the contract.
Compare the lists and solve the differences.
And in future articles of this kind I'd like to see the client's list verified before being published instead of vague accusations of "work not done".
Anonymous (August 31, 2007 @ 4:40pm):
Last week a man was sentenced in Milwaukee County because he voted twice, once in Wauwatosa and once in West Allis. This would not have been discovered without the Statewide Voter Registration System. Why does Mike McCabe think the system is "not necessary for WIsconsin?"
Anonymous (September 7, 2007 @ 10:04pm):
kevin kennedy should give up the ghost on this one. this system can not even do absentee voting.
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