Statewide voter system put on hold; officials doubt it will work

Three veteran Nevada election officials say they doubt the statewide voter registration system will ever work properly and they're sending Secretary of State Dean Heller a letter saying so.

Heller suspended work on the $4.6 million contract with Covansys Inc. of Michigan last week after his staff and clerks agreed the system, required by the federal Help America Vote Act, was nowhere near ready to handle this year's elections.

He said the company, which has been paid $1.2 million so far, has missed every deadline and that last week's demonstration to show how well it was working was a total failure.

He said that fortunately, his office and the clerks have a back-up plan that will satisfy the federal requirements while the Covansys system is fixed.

Under that plan, the counties will use their existing systems this election cycle and meet the requirement to create a statewide voter registration list by electronically sending their voter registration lists to his office at least weekly, and as often as daily, during peak election season.

Heller also expressed optimism Covansys would be able to fix the computer program and provide Nevada with a first-class voter registration and election management system.

"In the end this is going to be a great project and a good product," he said. And, he said, he believes the clerks are starting to see the program is moving in the right direction.

Carson City Clerk-Recorder Alan Glover, Douglas Clerk Barbara Reed and Washoe Registrar of Voters Dan Burk disagreed.

"We don't think we're moving in the right direction and we don't like it," Glover said. "I'm not convinced Covansys can ever give us a product that's really workable. It's not as good a system as the ones Washoe, Clark, Carson and Douglas use now."

"It's unreliable. It's not consistent. It's not dependable. It's so full of errors I couldn't even begin to identify them," Reed said.

"There's a strong question in my mind whether it will ever be able to work for the voters of Nevada," Burk said. "It's just really a mess right now."

The three said the state's 17 county election officials are drafting a letter to Heller expressing their concerns about the Covansys system and making recommendations.

Glover said the best option he sees is to scrap the contract and start over. He said Maine recently canceled its Covansys contract.

Burk said he wouldn't disagree: "There comes a point where you come to the inescapable conclusion, do you throw good money after bad or sever that and find another way.

"Frankly, the clerks have been telling the Secretary of State's office for over seven months now they don't get it at Covansys, they don't understand."

Among the problems they cited is that the Covansys system still doesn't even alphabetize voter names or put precincts in numerical order, leaving clerk's office staffs to hunt through huge lists for what they need.

"There was not a single district in our county that was correctly designed," Burk said. "They had the wrong precincts in the district, people in the wrong precincts. It's just unbelievable."

Glover said that at one point, they tied the program to DMV and asked it to confirm a driver's license for a fictional Mary Smith, license number 12345678.

The system confirmed that as a valid driver's license, even though it was fictitious. Glover said that is obviously not acceptable in a system designed to root out duplicate and false voter registrations.

All three said the system is "balky" and frustrating to use. For example: Instead of entering a voter registration on one simple form as they do now, Covansys might require the clerk to go through several forms and screens on the computer to complete the job.

Burk objected to Heller's statement that part of the problem is the clerks have been asking for so many added things in the system.

"That's simply not true."

But all three emphasized the problem is not with Heller or his elections division staff who they said have labored thousands of hours alongside the clerks trying to make the project successful.

"The problem is Covansys was in above their heads from the beginning. They didn't have a system to begin with," Burk said.

All three said the clerks want to continue working with the Secretary of State's office to get the job done.

At the same time, they said all the clerks were relieved Heller agreed to delay the project until after this year's election cycle.

"There have been thousands of hours spent on it, but it's now to the point where we need to do elections so we're moving on," Reed said.

n Contact reporter Geoff Dornan at gdornan@nevadaappeal.com or 687-8750.