Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 7, 2005

By Steven Walters

Madison - Wisconsin's $13.9 million contract with Accenture is coming under increasing fire, now that Kansas has ended its contract with the firm and some local Pennsylvania election officials say the company's voter list systems don't work.

The Wisconsin contract calls for the consulting giant to develop the first centralized list of registered voters statewide by Jan. 1, with links to both local election officials and other state agencies.

Any delays or difficulties in implementing the system could cause problems in the November 2006 elections, which will feature races for governor, U.S. Senate and state attorney general, among others.

Milwaukee officials, in particular, are eagerly awaiting the system, which they hope will help them eliminate some of their election problems. "There's a lot at stake here," said state Elections Board Executive Director Kevin Kennedy.

Unlike other states, Wisconsin is "starting from scratch" in having to compile its statewide list, because about 1 million voting-age residents - out of 4 million statewide - live in small communities without voter registration.

Voters in those communities simply go to the polls on Election Day, and their names are checked against a poll list.

Tracking down those 1 million voters and getting them to provide proof of their identity greatly complicates the job facing local election officials, the Elections Board and Accenture.

The contract also calls for software that links local and state election officials, so fraud can be prevented, addresses can be regularly updated and new voters can be added easily.

Accenture officials deny that any major problems exist with their Wisconsin project.

"Accenture is currently on schedule to meet the first major milestone for the project - delivery of the first release of voter registration and election software on April 5," said company spokesman James E. McAvoy.

The Accenture deal is under fire from a variety of fronts:

• Unions for state workers say they should be ones compiling the list of voters, instead of getting layoff notices while that contract was outsourced. The entire cost of creating, managing and maintaining the voter registration list is estimated at $26 million, with the Accenture contract only one part of that.
• A Dane County Circuit Court lawsuit alleges that Kennedy did not have the legal authority to sign the Accenture contract last year.
• One of those suing to void the deal is state Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison), who said Minnesota developed its own list of voters for only $5.3 million. But a Minnesota official said that may not be a fair comparison, because Minnesota already had lists of voters in every county.
• Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager's office is probing whether there were any state open records law violations in the process of awarding of the contract.
• Legislators last week sent Kennedy 37 questions they want answered before they release $1.7 million in tax funds required to match federal funds for the project.
• Controversies have dogged Accenture elsewhere.

On Jan. 19, Kansas Secretary of State Rod Thornburgh wrote another state official of his decision to "terminate" the Accenture contract. But on Jan. 31, Thornburgh told Accenture he had instead "decided to conclude the contract by mutual agreement." An aide to Thornburgh declined to answer any questions about the decision.

Joseph Passarella, director of voter services for Montgomery County, Pa., which has 520,000 voters, said he refused to use the Accenture-designed software in last year's presidential election because it can take three or four minutes to process one voter, and that state's system sometimes locks up.

"I find it difficult to believe the problems we experienced are fixed," said Passarella, who leads a group of 33 eastern Pennsylvania election officials who want the state to fire Accenture. "The system is very, very slow."

Bob Lee, voter registration administrator for Philadelphia, which has about 1 million voters, said the Accenture software "was bought in the dark of night. It's amazing - it's how not to do it."

But Accenture's McAvoy said it has been difficult for some local Pennsylvania officials "to go from a system that counties owned and operated to a centralized state-run system."

Wisconsin is buying voter registration software that is much different than what Pennsylvania bought, McAvoy said.

Wisconsin's Kennedy said that both he and Accenture have learned from problems in other states.

Kennedy said a two-year process directed by the state Department of Administration led to the hiring of Accenture. "The process picked Accenture; I can't say that I picked Accenture," he said.

The City of Milwaukee's troubled election system will be helped by a standardized voter registration list, Kennedy added. The Journal Sentinel has found 1,200 votes in the November election cast from invalid addresses; 1,300 same-day voter registration cards that can't be processed; and 17 wards where 100 or more votes were recorded than people who, according to city records, voted there.