When I saw the cover of this week's Isthmus yesterday, I was immediately intrigued. Right next to a big picture of Kevin Kennedy, General Counsel at the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, the title, “Do you trust this man with your vote?”, was asking a question I have been both asking of others and trying to answer for myself for the last year and a half. My hope was that this article would provide needed insight that would help me finally say “Yes, I do!”. Unfortunately, the article didn’t just fail to shed any kind of real light on Wisconsin’s top election official, it totally glossed over some very important issues that are the reasons for the question, “Do you trust this man with your vote?”, leaving this reader thinking that the author wanted more to present Kevin Kennedy positively than to actually address the question posed in the title – which I believe would leave people truly questioning whether they really can trust Kevin Kennedy with their votes. Certainly, after what I’ve learned about Kevin Kennedy and aspects of his history heading up our elections, I do not.
Let me say that there was much in this article that I would like to address, but today I will address one specific issue Mary Ellen Bell mentioned in her article that is near and dear to my heart, and which I feel she should have expanded on if she truly wanted to provide readers with information about why this was a hotly debated issue that caused people to question Kennedy’s integrity: the selection of Accenture to develop our federally-mandated Statewide Voter Registration database Instead of presenting even a brief summary of what all this controversy encompassed, she breezed over it with a simple statement about it being a legal battle, then finished it off with a with simple statement of rebuff from Kennedy. Investigative journalism, this was not.
What do Enron and Wisconsin elections have in common? Accenture.
The controversial hiring of Accenture is an important issue when asking a question about trusting Kevin Kennedy with our votes, yet Mary Ellen Bell did little more than give a very brief explanation of the legal battle that ensued as a result of Kennedy’s actions regarding the contract with Accenture, and only one line about the so-called reason for the opposition to his decision:
“Kennedy figures much of the criticism directed at Accenture stems from its former affiliation with Arthur Andersen, of the Enron scandal, and its support of Republican candidates.”
Well, that certainly is a tidy way of summing things up! Unfortunately, Kennedy’s statement about Accenture’s contributions to Republicans – an aspect that I don’t doubt doesn’t sit well with Democrats – wasn’t actually part of the lawsuit (
read the complaint text here). Kennedy, as well as the author, completely glossed over what was truly at the heart of that legal battle: Kennedy’s method of obtaining this contact with a highly questionable firm known for its involvement in one of this country’s most notorious scandals simply called “
Enron”. But beyond that, there most certainly were (
and still are) legitimate concerns beyond how they were hired, such as:
- Accenture’s relationship to the Enron scandaland the giant red flag that alone raised about this company’s overall integrity;
- the Florida voter purge list scandal that came to light just prior to this contract being awarded (which benefited Republican candidates) at which Accenture was the root;
- the very circumstances under which the multi -million dollar contract was awarded – the 4-week bid process (see #21) that resulted in Accenture being awarded the contract prior to the Elections Board actually approving it…or even approving the Request for Proposal (RFP) that solicited the bid;
- or how about the fact that, after all was said and done – after millions was spent to ensure Wisconsin compliance with a federal mandate AND the integrity of our statewide voter registration database, the actual database would be the intellectual property of Accenture
Gee, might any of those things had to do with Kevin Kennedy’s “trial by fire” with respect to Accenture???
What I’d like to know is why didn’t Mary Ellen Bell mention ANY of this when asking the question “Do you trust this man with your vote?” It IS relevant. I don’t give a rat’s behind what happened 6 months later, the end does not justify the means. Getting approval after the fact for something done NOT in accordance with the established protocol does not make the fact that Kevin Kennedy did not follow protocol any less important. That is an integrity issue which I do not take lightly, and – as far as I’m concerned – still casts a shadow over him to this day. As well it should.
But what Ms Bell really downplayed was the fact that Accenture was a gigantic mistake that Kevin Kennedy, himself fought hard to make happen. He owns that mistake. He didn’t just push the bid process through in a short time for a project of this magnitude and importance, and he didn’t just ignore protocol for awarding a contract, he fought a legal battle to defend his agency’s choice of Accenture as the right company for this project. Then, three years later, he sued them as a result of their extreme incompetence…acting like the knight in shining amour that saved the day! Excuse me? Nothing could be further from the truth: Kennedy was the top election official who realized he bungled our multi-million voter registration database by hiring a shady company after side-stepping established protocols and approvals, and had to fix it before Accenture’s incompetence caused too much damage…so he sued. He did what he had to do to fix his own mistake - nothing more, nothing less.
In summary, Mary Ellen Bell’s article in this week's Isthmus about Kevin Kennedy, while a nice piece that did well to make him look like an innocent (non-partisan) victim of politics, did nothing to help readers answer the very question she, herself, posed with the title: “Do you trust this man with your vote?” And, in light of the high priority clerk communication that was released by Kevin Kennedy the same day this issue of Isthmus hit the stands (Impending Report Regarding Hand Count of Ballots from the June 5 Recall ), wherein Kennedy is giving clerks a heads-up about an upcoming announcement regarding the results of the June 5th recall election hand-count conducted by the Wisconsin Wave and Hand Count Votes Now Coalition...
"...In preparation for the release of the report, we are asking you to share with us any observations you and your staff may have noted about the conduct of the hand count. Upon release of the report, we are asking you to review any section related to you and provide us with comments specific to the report. As far as we know, there has been no independent review of the methodology or the procedures the group followed in conducting the hand count or preparing their report, so your observations and comments will be very useful in assessing the validity of this report. Please send your comment and feedback to Ross Hein, Elections Supervisor at Ross.Hein@wi.gov, and copy David Burger, Elections Specialist at David.Buerger@wi.gov.
Thank you for your immediate attention to this request, especially in light of the preparations for next week’s elections."
..I am inclined to believe this article was a preemptive move to try to get readers on the GAB’s side in case the results challenge the GAB’s certification of the recall election in Scott Walker’s favor.