9/28/05: Elections Board Is Urged To Cancel Voter List Contract (Wisconsin Democracy Campaign)
Elections Board Is Urged To Cancel Voter List Contract
Tardy Work Called Breach Of Pact
The Capital Times Wednesday, September 28, 2005
By Judith Davidoff The Capital Times
The state Elections Board will be asked today to scrap its contract with the private contractor hired to create the state's first statewide voter registration list.
Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, and Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, said they would ask Elections Board members who are meeting today to cancel their contract with Accenture LLP by declaring a material breach in the contract for missed deadlines.
"The state Elections Board has told us they will likely not meet the federal deadline required to have the statewide voter database in effect, thus jeopardizing tens of millions of dollars to Wisconsin," Pocan said in a news release. "We need to act now on the contract language which allows us to get compliance or cancel the contract. Continued foot dragging can be extremely costly to Wisconsin taxpayers."
Kevin Kennedy, executive director of the state Elections Board, announced last week the state would not have its statewide voter registration system up and running by the federal deadline of Jan. 1, 2006, due to bugs in software developed by Accenture.
Kennedy said at the time he did not know whether the missed deadline would jeopardize any of the $50.4 million in federal funding the state received under the Help America Vote Act, which mandates that states create statewide voter lists.
Shane Falk, a member of the Wisconsin Elections Board, said there is little chance members would be convinced to end the contract with Accenture and start all over.
"If we cancelled the Accenture contract right now there is absolutely no way we can even have something in place for the November 2006 election," Falk said on Tuesday. "It's just absurd. If you look at how difficult it's been to just get this going, to start over from scratch would be just impossible."
Falk, who is also a member of the steering committee overseeing the statewide voter registration system project, said Accenture officials would be at the meeting to answer questions about the delays.
Falk said the major bugs reported last week have been corrected.
"We're testing it right now to test that that is true," Falk said.