Kevin J. Kennedy, Executive Director
Wisconsin State Elections Board
17 West Main Street, Suite 310
Madison, Wisconsin 53701-2973

RE: Informal cost-saving response to HAVA-SVRS RFP (Hand Delivered before 3:00 p.m.)

Dear Mr. Kennedy:

Question: What if the federal government's $40 million isn't available or the cost projections for the statewide voter registration database get wildly out of hand?

This letter is not intended to be a formal response to the Election Board's RFP regarding the creation of a statewide voter registration database system (SVRS). Instead, it is intended to offer a viable alternative if the federal appropriation turns out to be insufficient to complete the project as contemplated, or vendor cost projections are excessive.

In the simplest terms, Wisconsin Voter Lists (WVL) could provide a complete and accurate statewide voter file to the state for $2 million. In addition, we could maintain it for just $500,000 to $1 million a year. The annual maintenance fee, which would include rights to resell the public voter history obtained, would be broken down as follows: $100,000 for each election, plus 10 cents per person who registers or votes in an election. The total cost to the state of the 10-cent per person charge would vary from approximately $400,000 in odd numbered years to approximately $900,000 in presidential years.

This file would be a substantial improvement over the present situation. With enhancements it would comply with HAVA and would allow functionality to be added over time as money becomes available. WVL would be available to continue supporting the file indefinitely, but the state could terminate the arrangement at any time with no penalty and assume full responsibility for the system whenever it felt capable to do so.

The $2 million base cost would not include the right to resell WVL's existing voter history data (on average 8 years of history for each individual in the file) to political candidates or campaigns. If the state wishes to make that information available under the Open Records Act WVL would receive an additional fee to compensate us for the reduction in market value of its file. This fee is negotiable.

As is widely known, WVL has already built a statewide voter file which contains the names of 3.75 million voters, their addresses, dates of birth, political geography, and records of the 10 million ballots they have cast over the past eight years.

Although our file is broadly equivalent to the file contemplated by the RFP, certain additional data would need to be gathered to meet the requirements of HAVA. The two most obvious additions would be the names of people who have registered to vote but have never voted, and improvements in the ward coding for people who live in mid-sized municipalities which conduct elections with aggregated wards.

WVL's file, after the enhancements needed to conform to HAVA are added, would be sufficient for the conduct of elections in Wisconsin. But we would expect the state, on its own, to seek improvements, as detailed in the RFP. In particular: 1) Specialized hardcopy reports for use in handling absentee ballots and on Election Day. 2) On-line access by local Clerks for lookup and editing. 3) Public access to selected fields of each record, such as confirming a person's registration status, or determining where to vote.

Such enhancements are not within WVL's core expertise, which is the conversion of data from paper records or municipal electronic files and the standardization and de-duplication of voter records for use in political campaigns. We would envision our role -- continuing so long as we are needed - to be largely limited to maintenance of the voter file. We could suggest contractors whom we know are competent to handle aspects of the enhancements needed, but we would be very comfortable working with contractors chosen by the state government. Perhaps we are lacking in imagination, but we would expect these and similar functionalities could be included at a onetime cost of no more than $1 million.

As we read the RFP, we are struck by its failure to address Wisconsin's unique situation -- that the availability of election day registration eliminates the central significance of ordinary voter registration. Since between 70 and 75 percent of all registration activity has typically occurred on Election Day, and not beforehand, the recording of voter registration in Wisconsin is largely linked to capturing of voter history, rather than being a major activity in the weeks or months preceding major elections. Perhaps more important, election day registration creates a fault-tolerance not present in most other states, since a person whose records have been mishandled or otherwise not properly included in the list is not in jeopardy of being denied the right to vote. It seems utterly obvious that certain cumbersome and rarely used procedures asked for in the RFP might not be necessary. Instead the system can be designed to be more efficient for the great majority of trouble-free transactions. As a result, it can be much lower in cost.

Who is Wisconsin Voter Lists? Mark Grebner has created and maintained computerized voter lists in East Lansing, Michigan since 1974, operating under the name Practical Political Consulting. PPC has approximately 15 employees and sales in excess of $1,000,000 per year. He and his partner, Alan Fox, formed WVL in 1999 to create the first comprehensive voter file in Wisconsin's history. That file is used by political parties, all major candidates, and a number of political interest groups.

The accuracy and completeness of WVL's file is well-known to political officials in both parties and to the media. According to national political consulting firms that work in multiple states, the accuracy of WVL's Wisconsin file is superior to some of the files maintained by state governments for the official conduct of elections. WVL is willing to provide either a sample or the entire file for inspection upon request.

WVL is represented within Wisconsin by Barry Ashenfelter, Post Office Box 636, Watertown, WI, 53098, (920) 206-7092, www.wisconsinvoters.com, voterlists@charter.net. Please feel free to contact Barry or myself if you have further questions or comments.

I sincerely believe the state can create a SVRS that complies with HAVA and improves the administration of elections in Wisconsin for much, much less than is currently contemplated.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Mark Grebner, Owner
Practical Political Consulting - Wisconsin Voter Lists