Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, February 26, 2006

By Reid J. Epstein, Patrick Marley, and Darryl Enriqu

Last week's primary was the first live test of the state's troubled voter database.

Municipalities in 21 counties were supposed to use the list in Tuesday's election, but about a dozen towns, villages and cities canceled their plans to do so - including all communities with primaries in Racine County - because of problems with the software.

Racine County Clerk Joan Rennert said that two weeks ago, she decided not to use the database for seven municipalities because the software would not allow her to print a list of all registered voters.

Rennert said that in some cases, the system took as long as five minutes to pull up voter information, making it impossible to update addresses and confirm that voters were listed in the right wards.

Jim McAvoy, a spokesman for database developer, Accenture, said those problems likely were caused by local or state computers because the voter list was running properly in other parts of the state.

"We're aware of some cases where the system is running slowly, but we believe at this point it could be caused by a number of reasons and believe it is not a fault of the system," he said.

A lack of training contributed to the problems, he said.

State sets new goal
Kyle Richmond, a state Elections Board spokesman, said board officials hoped to have a workable database for all Wisconsin communities by the September primary.

Under federal law, all states were supposed to be running their databases by Jan. 1, but almost a dozen missed the deadline, according to Electionline.org, a Web site that tracks election reforms.

The database is expected to cost about $27.5 million, with a little more than half of the money going to software vendor Accenture.

The federal government will pick up most of the cost.

Richmond said 11 communities that were supposed to use the voter list in Tuesday's elections, such as those in Racine County, opted to use older systems. He said 135 others used it.

Officials were disappointed at the unexpected low voter turnouts around the area in Tuesday's primary, particularly in Caledonia, which had its first village election.

Brookfield managed only 15.6% in its race for mayor and one aldermanic seat.

Waukesha had only 11% of its registered voters visit the polls in a race for a new mayor.

"It was the quickest I've ever been out of here on an election night," Waukesha Clerk/Treasurer Tom Neill said.

One area that bucked the trend Tuesday was Mequon and Thiensville, where voter turnout was 37% for a $7.5 million school referendum that was defeated.

Spring elections for local offices generally hold lower public interest than fall elections for national offices.

Bev Buretta, Oak Creek clerk, said some constituents have the attitude that "it's only a primary. I'll vote in the general election."

Better showing expected
Other communities found those remarks to be true.

Caledonia had 10.5% in its races for Village Board and School Board, and Oak Creek, which borders Caledonia to the north, had a turnout of 11% for its mayoral and two aldermanic races.

Caledonia Clerk Wendy Christensen said she had hoped at least 25% of the village's registered voters would go to the polls because it was the community's first election as a village.

Voters were charged with paring down Board of Trustee candidates from 13 to 12.

"Considering the weather was fairly clear and not too cold, I expected a little better showing," Christensen said. "This is about half of what I expected considering it was the first village election."

Instead of scolding those "who didn't make an effort to show up," Christensen said she would express her appreciation to everyone who voted.

Buretta said the Oak Creek ballot also was unusual because it contained only local elections.

"I believe it's been quite a few years since that had happened," she said.

Christensen said it's a shame when voters ignore local elections. She believes in her grandmother's motto.