From The Sun-Sentinel, 7/14/04:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/florida/sfl-felons14jul14,0,4473996.story?coll=sfla-news-florida
'Potential felons' list that was scrapped cost Florida almost $2
million
By Bob Mahlburg and John Kennedy
Tallahassee Bureau
TALLAHASSEE --
A database of almost 48,000 "potential felons," so riddled with errors
that it had to be scrapped, cost state taxpayers nearly $2 million to
compile and defend, officials said Tuesday.
The state paid at least $1.8 million to Accenture, a private
technology company with close ties to the Florida Republican Party, to
help create the flawed list.
Then it spent at least $125,000 in attorney fees to a GOP-linked law
firm in a failed effort to keep the list secret, even though the
state's chief lawyer, Attorney General Charlie Crist, said it was not
worth defending.
"The whole thing was a waste of money, especially defending the list
in court," Ben Wilcox, executive director of Common Cause of Florida,
said Tuesday.
"They should have made the list open from the very beginning so people
could spot the errors."
At the same time, 67 county election supervisors around the state have
paid a growing bill for staff and extra resources in their attempts to
verify the state list.
Indian River County elections supervisor Kay Clem, for example, hired
a firm specializing in criminal checks after finding people without
any criminal record listed as potential felons.
The list was supposed to be a tool used to help identify ineligible
voters.
In Florida, felons cannot vote unless they get their rights restored.
The state scrapped the database Saturday after finding it ignored
thousands of Hispanic voters.
Even after it was dumped, the potential felon-voter list continues to
heighten partisan tension in battleground Florida, a state where polls
show President Bush and Democrat John Kerry dead even.
"Jeb Bush wasted millions of our taxpayers dollars in an attempt to
improperly purge voters," said State Democratic Party Chair Scott
Maddox.
"He spent millions with Accenture, as well as hundreds of thousands of
dollars on lawyers, to defend an indefensible position. If the public
knew a so-called fiscal conservative has been wasting millions of
dollars to try to get a leg up in the electoral process, there would
be universal outrage."
The felon list was compiled by the Department of State, which is under
Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, working with the technology giant Accenture,
whose Capitol lobbyists include a lineup of well-connected Florida
Republicans.
Accenture's lobbyists include a former state GOP chairman, Van Poole,
along with two former state party staffers and a former top aide to
Gov. Jeb Bush.
Even Gov. Bush questioned why the mistake excluding Hispanic voters
occurred, and if Accenture should have caught it.
"It should have been looked at by a whole cast of people from the
[state elections] division, to the vendor, to the people who signed
for the NAACP and others," Bush said.
"I'm going to look into it."
But Accenture said problems with the felon list should be attributed
to the state, a company official said.
"We build the computer system and the software," said Jim McAvoy, a
company spokesman in Reston, Va.
"But we don't provide the data or any of the material that's input."
The iVotronic touch-screen machines state officials are looking to
upgrade with a computer "patch" because of potential auditing problems
also relied on some influential Republican connections in selling the
machines to 11 Florida counties.
Sandra Mortham, a former secretary of state, and a former aide, Gene
McGee, both represented Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb.,
which builds the 9-pound computerized iVotronic machines.
Along with the state's largest counties, Broward and Miami-Dade,
iVotronics are being used in Central Florida's Lake and Sumter
counties.
"I'd like to say we were helpful," said McGee who, like Mortham, no
longer represents ES&S.
"But these were sold to the individual county election supervisors on
their own merits by the company's salespeople. Me being a Republican
didn't have anything to do with getting them approved by a mostly
Democratic County Commission in Broward County."
Concerning the felons database, Nicole de Lara, a spokeswoman for
Secretary of State Glenda Hood, said she was not sure of the exact
contract arrangements.
Asked if state money was well spent, she repeatedly stated that the
department "had a statutory obligation" to spend such money.
But de Lara conceded in an earlier interview that the state could have
settled the CNN lawsuit, which forced officials to release the
database.
Instead, Hood chose to defend the case, costing nearly $150,000 in
legal fees.
De Lara said the case involved broader issues than just the felon
list.
State lawmakers appropriated $2 million for the felons database in
2001 and reportedly planned to have a county election supervisors
group develop the list.
But a $1.6 million contract was later awarded to Accenture and add-ons
raised the total to roughly $1.8 million, said attorney Maria
Matthews, who works for Hood.
Records show Hood's office agreed to spend at least $125,000 on
attorneys to defend a state law restricting the release of voter
records.
Hood's office agreed to pay $425-per-hour to Miami attorney Joe Klock
Jr., plus $300-per-hour for six more lawyers.
"It is outrageous," said Orlando attorney David Fussell.
"The state has a hard time funding kindergarten."
De Lara said the state was obligated to defend the law, but critics
disagreed.
"It clearly was a waste," said ACLU of Florida Executive Director
Howard Simon.
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Lying, cheating and stealing are all Bush family traditions.
Harry
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