PA Voter Database[]
Pennsylvania spent $20 million on a voter database project with a company from Bermuda.
In June, 2005, the election watchdog organization, Electiononline.org, said that among states reporting the cost of their voter registration database projects, Pennsylvania's system was the most expensive.
Allegheny County Voter Database[]
Planks[]
Background[]
The federal [Help America Vote Act] requires states to have a statewide voter registration database by Jan. 1, 2006. States have had wide latitude in how they chose to comply with the law.
Before the act became law, Pennsylvania in 2002 selected Accenture to build not only a voter registration list, but also a program that helps manage elections by assisting in the distribution of voter identification cards, providing post-election voter turnout reports and handling absentee ballots.
While local voter registration officials largely were wedded to their old programs, those systems had the disadvantage of not being linked. Centralized systems ideally will prevent people from being disenfranchised on Election Day, as happened in 2000 and 2004, electionline.org said.
Bad voter registration lists, it said, have led to frustrated citizens, disputed results and doubts about the integrity of the election system as a whole.
Passarella, Montgomery County's election chief, thinks the new PA system eventually will work fine. But he's not confident that time has come. His staff is still entering voter registration data in the county's old system just in case the new one acts up again.
Links[]
Media[]
- Politics goes high tech to get voters to polls November, 2006, bY Brett Lieberman of the Washington Bureau, SPRING CITY - When Republicans want to get a message on gun control to sportsmen, they might call Wal-Mart shoppers.