Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 24, 2004

By Steven Walters

Madison - The state Elections Board was sued Thursday in an attempt to void a $13.9 million contract with an out-of-state company hired to set up the first statewide list of voters, a requirement of the federal Help America Vote Act.

The lawsuit threatens to make the state miss its January 2006 deadline to create an online list of its estimated 4 million voters - a list required to be in place for elections for governor, U.S. Senate, the Legislature and other offices that year. It must include state records on drivers and criminals and voter names compiled by municipal clerks.

The suit asks a Dane County judge to rule that Elections Board Executive Director Kevin Kennedy did not have authority to sign the contract with Accenture, a national consulting firm, on Nov. 12.

Kennedy's signature on the contract that runs through 2010 should be voided because the deal had not been approved by the state Elections Board, according to the suit filed by the head of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, two union leaders, one legislator, Rep. Mark Pocan, a Democrat from Madison,and a company that tried to bid on the contract but was disqualified.

State law designates the full Elections Board, and not Kennedy, as the overseer of elections under limits set by the Legislature and governor, according to the suit. The full board has never voted to approve the Accenture contract.

"The Elections Board should do what they are supposed to do," said Ed Garvey, the Madison lawyer who filed the suit.

Besides voiding the Accenture contract, the suit asks that a judge order the Elections Board to adopt a new plan to implement the federal Help America Vote Act, passed after the 2000 presidential election, which was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Accenture contract is controversial in several ways. State employee unions have protested it, saying state workers could do the job cheaper, and others insist that Accenture botched a similar contract in Florida.

Mike McCabe, executive director of the non-profit Democracy Campaign and one of those who sued, said the Accenture contract was negotiated in secret with "a serious lack of accountability."

Accenture "will handle work that is fundamental to the functioning of our democracy - voter registration," McCabe said Thursday. He also said state workers could set up the voter list "at a fraction of the cost" of the Accenture pact, but Kennedy's staff never studied what using state workers would cost.

"Unless this contract is canceled, this outsourcing deal will haunt Wisconsin for many years to come," added McCabe, who said Accenture would own software and computer programs created to set up Wisconsin's list of voters.

But Kennedy said Thursday that he, and not the full Elections Board, has been making decisions, such as signing the Accenture contract, for 21 years.

"There was never any expectation" that the full board would have to approve it, Kennedy added.

Throughout the months-long process of researching the project, advertising it for bids, disqualifying firms that had no experience maintaining lists of at least 1 million voters and picking Accenture over a competitor, Kennedy said he had "carefully consulted" with the state Department of Administration, which directs the procurement process.

In a Wednesday interview, Kennedy said critics of the Accenture contract "don't know what they are talking about."

State officials - not Accenture - created the problem with Florida's voter-registration list, he said. Accenture officials could not be reached for comment Thursday.

A Wisconsin company, Wisconsin Voter Lists, joined the lawsuit. Officials of that company have said they offered to set up the list for about $2 million, but were disqualified because of inexperience setting up and maintaining large computer lists of voters.