By Mark Grebner

Last week, state Elections Board director Kevin Kennedy wrote a column critical of my firm and our recently settled lawsuit against the board. Our perspective is different.

Over the past eight years, Wisconsin Voter Lists has built a statewide voter list by collecting and standardizing public records from local election clerks. Some of this information has been in electronic form, but we have also photographed and copied millions of pencil-and-paper records. Our data are used by both major political parties, as well as candidates.

For a while, we faced competition from both political parties, which as it turned out were relying on data compiled by state employees working illegally at public expense. The payroll costs ran well into the millions of dollars. Many of the officials responsible have been removed from office and/or convicted of crimes. In any event, they are no longer in the voter list business.

Recently, Wisconsin obtained federal money to create a similar statewide database, selecting Accenture to do the work. Our firm, which has 15 employees and spent $600,000 to build our file, was deemed unqualified by the Elections Board.

Three of four states that hired Accenture to compile their voter lists have fired the company, for breach of contract and incompetence. Alternating between praising their work and threatening to fine them, Wisconsin clings to Accenture, ignoring the missed deadlines, cost overruns, and poorly performing software.

Because the state has now committed to spending more than $27.5million to build a voter file similar to ours, my firm asked for a copy, so we can concentrate on collecting other information not available through the state list. We thought expensive technology might actually increase access to public records, not limit it.

In response to our Dec. 5 request, the Elections Board gave us a number of reasons all ridiculous for refusing to let us see the state voter file. Delay and denial were their primary tactics.

First, we were told the entire voter file was "a draft memorandum," which couldn't be released until it was completed. Does a database meet the legal definition of a "memorandum," which is compiled in order to help an official make a decision? In any event, will this database ever be complete? And even if, say, Ladysmith isn't done, why can't we look at the data from Racine?

Then they told us we could have the data, but that we'd have to get it directly from the hundreds of individual municipal clerks. According to the clerks we phoned, just as we expected, the state had not provided them with any method to obtain a list from the state's new voter database forus or for themselves. The Elections Board now admits there is no procedure for providing that information to the local clerks so they must have been kidding when they told us we could obtain it.

Finally, the Elections Board told us the reason we couldn't see the data was that it contained some private information (such as phone numbers) and that they were incapable of separating it out for us. This appears to have been an outright lie not only does the technology obviously exist to separate out private information, but, since our lawsuit settlement, they've now agreed to provide it. All we have ever asked for was a copy of the fields that are public record.

In good faith and in an attempt to resolve the matter amicably, we gave the Elections Board a copy of our legal complaint and made them aware of the potential for litigation weeks before we filed our lawsuit. It became clear that we needed to bring our request before a judge, who would have the power to place them under oath and compel answers. We also filed a new request with the Elections Board for additional data that had been collected since our first request.

Before our court hearing started, the Elections Board agreed to provide everything we asked for, if we would dismiss the suit. Our only concession was to agree the board won't be required to pay my attorney fees.