Protesters chanting \Florida no, Wisconsin yes, we're sick of paying more for less"" marched in front of the Risser Justice Center, 17 W. Main St., Tuesday to object to an electronic voting contract.
This November, the State Elections Board of Wisconsin approved a contract with a company called Accenture for a statewide computerized voting system. The Wisconsin State Journal reported the contract to be worth $12 million. Accenture, the same company the state of Florida documented problems with in the 2000 presidential election, is located in Bermuda and is a private, for-profit business.
""We are now having a private company control our voter list,"" said Carol Weidel, State Alliance for Value and Government Spending project spokesperson and Dept. of Health and Family services employee.
""Why is the state signing a multi-million dollar contract when state employees could do the work for much cheaper?""
A Dept. of Administration employee reports state workers could accomplish the job Accenture was hired to do for $500,000 or less.
Referring to Wisconsin State Legislators as ""ostriches,"" Jim Cavanaugh, President of the South Central Federation of Labor, spoke of the importance of state employees.
""If those ostriches would pull their heads out of the sand for just a few moments and listen to their greatest asset, their employees,"" Cavanaugh said, ""they might actually learn how to solve this state's ongoing budget crisis.""
Cavanaugh criticized the state's ability to recognize wasteful government operations and said Wisconsin deserves more rational decision makers to properly allocate funds.
Phyllis Hasbrouck, a member of the Madison chapter of Prove It On Paper, a national organization for the elimination of voting fraud, said Accenture has a financial interest in the outcome of elections and that is unfair and undemocratic.
""We will not accept this attempt to privatize elections,"" she said.
Hasbrouck also said Accenture disregarded a large majority of the African American vote in Florida in 2000 and not only purged felons' names from voting lists, but also people with the same or similar names to felons.
""This is a message to Governor [Jim] Doyle, it's a message to both parties in the legislature and it's a message to the citizens of Wisconsin,"" Weidel said. ""They should care that private, for-profit companies have access to their data. Something as important as the election process shouldn't be contracted out.\
