Old system hampers Elections Board

Law calls for software to put campaign data online, but agency lacks money

By DENNIS CHAPTMAN
of the Journal Sentinel staff

Last Updated: Sept. 25, 2001

Madison - Two years after Wisconsin law called for the state Elections Board to require electronic filing of campaign finance information, elections officials are nursing an antiquated computer system unable to handle the job.

After spending $195,000 last year on a study of their computer needs, officials cannot find the $3.5 million it will take to pay for the software and hardware that the law requires.

"We're way down the list," said Kevin Kennedy, executive director of the Elections Board. "After the 2000 elections, quite frankly, you'd think we'd be up that list."

The system would make campaign finance information broadly and immediately available online, and would aid in election administration, processing canvass information and campaign registration.

It would not include systems to provide online voting or statewide voter registration.

Kennedy and Elections Board members are lobbying Gov. Scott McCallum and key legislators in an effort to find funding for the project, during a time when the economy is weakening.

"We're the ones who are supposed to comply with the law, and we're not doing it," said David Halbrooks, an Elections Board member.

A 1999 law called for the board to provide software to registered candidates with annual expenditures of $20,000 or more so that the candidates could file campaign reports electronically.

Neither McCallum nor the Legislature included funding for the project in the 2001-'03 budget enacted last month because of financial limitations and questions over the project's final cost.

A solution, but no money

"The Elections Board is now faced with a well-researched solution, but no funding," Kennedy said. "Delaying the project exposes the agency to some real operational risks because the . . . system used by the board to manage agency operations is terminal."

The software and hardware used by Kennedy's 12-member staff is obsolete, he said. An earlier attempt to complete the project failed when the state ran into problems with the vendor, Kennedy said, further delaying the system's start-up.

The state Department of Administration has offered the Elections Board $300,000 to use on the project, but Kennedy said that was far from what is required.

"Even their own employees said that for $300,000, you might as well not do it because you'd be throwing your money away," Kennedy said.

McCallum's office deferred comment to administration Secretary George Lightbourn, whose agency is considering ways to phase in the project.

"We don't have policy differences over the project," Lightbourn said. "The trouble is that this is not the time to spend large amounts of money, in this case nearly $4 million."

Lightbourn said he hopes to go before the Joint Finance Committee this fall with his plan for a phase-in.

Part of the problem in finding the money, one board member said, is that elections administration is not a high political priority with lawmakers.

"Prescription drugs for seniors is much sexier than money for the Elections Board," said John Savage, a board member. "For $3.5 million, they can spend it somewhere else and get more bang for the buck, as they see it."

Even if the board received funding today, it could take another two years before the system is completely operational, Kennedy said.

Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, said lawmakers are reluctant to make campaign finance information broadly and immediately available, as an electronic filing system would do.

"There's no question in my mind that there is enormous political resistance," McCabe said. "It's two years overdue, and the Legislature's silence speaks volumes. Nobody's calling for audits or holding hearings asking why this hasn't been done."

McCabe's group now collects campaign finance information from paper reports and puts it into a computer database for analysis. He said the state system would eliminate the time-consuming process of entering the data.

"It would be extremely helpful to reporters and citizens, and groups like ours," said McCabe, whose group has lobbied for the computer system.

Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Sept. 26, 2001.

JSOnline

-- Anonymous, September 28, 2001