Can Kevin Kennedy and the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board be Trusted?

[liberal life]

Thanks to eowyn_of_rohan for the info
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...


RED FLAG #1 - Kevin Kennedy's illegal contract with Accenture
Remember HAVA the “Help America Vote Act”? One of the requirements was for states to have a statewide list of voters. In 2004, Wisconsin’s State Elections Board director Kevin Kennedy put out a “request for proposal” to potential vendors to create the list.

While HAVA requires compliance in seven areas, Kennedy included over 500 criteria for vendors, including a nearly insurmountable requirement that the vendor had done a similar contract with at least one million voters in the past. This made Wisconsin vendors ineligible, and opened the door to only the few companies that could meet the requirement, including Accenture.

Here is an excerpt from a Madison WI Capital Times article, published Sept. 2005:

John Nichols: Elections chief owes us explanation
By John Nichols - September 22, 2005

(In 2004) Kennedy was lobbying to award a $13.9 million contract for the creation of a statewide voter database to the controversial technology giant Accenture.

Kennedy was told at the time that the price tag for the project was far too high - Minnesota got its database work done for about $5 million. Kennedy was told that Accenture had a problematic track record - the company's work on voter registration and other technology issues has drawn criticism in states across the country.

In Florida, where officials were trying to clean up their elections after the 2000 presidential recount debacle, the St. Petersburg Times newspaper reported, "The state then turned to Accenture, a huge consulting and technology firm, to create a list that election supervisors were to use this year to screen felons whose voting rights had not been restored. But the list proved inaccurate."
In Kansas, Accenture was hired to develop a voter registration system but the relationship proved so troublesome that the state canceled the contract several months later.

As more was learned about the cost of the project and the company involved, Kennedy was counseled to change course by state legislators, experts in elections and state politics and groups working for clean government. Hundreds of Wisconsinites rallied outside the Elections Board headquarters to urge Kennedy and the board to reject the Accenture contract.

(*Many labor union members protested that day, and non-union members too, including me)
... Wisconsin vendors warned that the state was being "fleeced" and detailed how the project could be completed - with much of the work being done by current state employees - for far less.

When the board followed Kennedy's recommendation and decided to go ahead with the Accenture deal, officials with election reform organizations, heads of public employee unions and state Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, grew so concerned that they filed suit in an attempt to block the deal.

Kennedy would not listen. In fact, he kept cheerleading for the Accenture deal even as Elections Board employees quietly warned that things were not going well.

*(Kennedy signed it anyway, without the Board's approval. Several people sued the state over the contract, saying it was illegally awarded to Accenture because Kevin Kennedy signed the agreement before the board voted on it).

In July, Kennedy wrote an opinion piece published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel under the headline, "New state voter registration system is right on track." At the time, the Elections Board had already quietly approved an additional $1.4 million in funding for what was already an excessively costly project. Now, just two months later comes a new Journal Sentinel headline: "Voter registration system delayed: Testing finds too many errors to meet deadline."

To the surprise of no one, except perhaps Kevin Kennedy, testing by Elections Board staff and volunteer clerks revealed multiple system errors in the state's new voter registration and election management software. According to the Journal Sentinel report of last week: The system "is not ready, and the deadline to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002 won't be met."

...Kennedy owes Wisconsinites a lot more than a late-in-the-game expression of dissatisfaction. He owes us an explanation for why, when so many people in this state warned him that he was making the wrong deal with the wrong company, he encouraged the board to go ahead with it anyway.

And he needs to explain why, if Accenture's performance has proved unsatisfactory, he continues to refer to the firm as Wisconsin's "partner"? Isn't it time to consider canceling the contract and putting Wisconsin vendors and state employees to work on a simple project that could have been completed months ago at a fraction of the cost?


RED FLAG # 2 - Kevin Kennedy shills for Accenture @ ES&S-Diebold-Sequoia Conference

"Vendors Wine and Dine Election Officials in Hollywood"
National Conference Beverly Hills/Hollywood August 2005
http://www.ballotintegrity.org/DCForumID1/362.html

Kennedy was one of the speakers at this RW THUG event - guess who else was a speaker-- THERESA LEPORE!

More about Accenture...
Election Systems & Software (ES&S), Diebold, and Sequoia are the companies primarily involved in implementing the voting stations throughout the country. All three had strong ties to the Bush Administration. The largest investors in ES&S, Sequoia, and Diebold are government defense contractors Northrup-Grumman, Lockheed-Martin, Electronic Data Systems EDS) and Accenture.
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Back-room dealing a Capitol trend - Boston Globe - 2004-10-03
Dismayed that the technology company Accenture had located its headquarters in Bermuda, thereby avoiding paying hundreds of millions of dollars in US taxes, the House Appropriations Committee voted 35-17 this summer to strip the firm of a $10 billion Homeland Security contract.
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It was a rare moment of bipartisan agreement and an important victory for those who decry corporate tax loopholes. But it didn't last long. The Rules Committee, the all-powerful gatekeeper of the Republican leadership, prevented the measure from reaching the House floor. In a further show of its power to pick and choose what the full House can vote on, the Rules Committee allowed the House to vote on a ban on future Homeland Security contracts to overseas companies -- but let the $10 billion flow to Accenture, which spent $2 million last year lobbying the government.''

[liberal life]

1. begs the question-how does someone like this get such an important position of power?

Kinda like Prosser who admitted to illegal activites, he and Kathy Nickolaus were caught siphoning money from the state to their own Republican campaigns.

And strangely similar to how was Kathy Nickolaus not fired for her past behavior, but put into a position of power over election results.

What is going on in Wisconsin??

[PeaceNikki]

2. You understand he is an administrator and not on the board, right?

Also, here is more recent press: http://uppitywis.org/wi-elect-board-hits-doj-gop-voter-...
GOP hates him.

[PeaceNikki]

3. If you're interested in hearing him discuss this race on Wisconsin Public Radio, here's a link.

He was on Ben Meren's show Thursday about an hour before the press conference. The entire program is about this race and they talk about the Brookfield votes. It's an interesting program and will clear up a lot of misinformation being spread about Wisconsin elections and this race in particular.

http://www.wpr.org/wcast/download-mp3-request.cfm?mp3fi...

[liberal life]

4. the interview where he mentions that all the ballots will be hand counted

Only Wisconsin election law says that they will be put through the same calibrated machines?

[PeaceNikki]

5. Listen and learn.

[Johnny Harpo]

6. Can Anybody In Politics Be Trusted Anymore?

[dmr]

7. Locking -

Member no longer with us.

Thank you,
dmr
DU Moderator