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Clerk's Group would have Created List at Same Price as Accenture
In an October 2001 meeting with lawmakers, Florida's top elections official said he had no choice but to hire a private company to build Florida's Central Voter Database. The Florida Association of Court Clerks, a nonprofit organization that lawmakers wanted to handle the project, demanded too much money, he said. But former elections chief Clay Roberts didn't tell lawmakers that the clerks association had agreed to do the job for exactly the price he wanted. The omission gave Roberts and the Department of State a reason to hire a private company. They chose a contractor with ties to the Republican Party, going against a plan lawmakers thought would prevent a repeat of the 2000 election fiasco. Roberts' decision in 2001 left the project in the hands of a company that would answer to the Department of State, rather than leaving it up to the court clerks. Some say that's what the department wanted from the start -- authority over the voter database, which was also used to create the state's controversial felon purge list. [more]

Company Hired to Make Felon Voter List has Significant Ties to Republicans [more]