GAB required Nickolaus' program change to voting machines

But a test of equipment once change made was not performed

July 11, 2012
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By Laurel Walker of the Journal Sentinel

July 11, 2012 0

Waukesha - Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus' last-minute programming change to voting machines before the April 3 election - a change that may have triggered the computer error that stymied election night results reporting - was required by the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, newly released emails show.

However, a legally required public test of the equipment once that change was made to ensure it worked properly was not performed, according to the records.

A consultant hired at County Executive Dan Vrakas' insistence to identify problems and fixes in the clerk's office after a string of election-reporting problems said Nickolaus acknowledged she made a programming change after the machines were initially tested. However, the report says she didn't specify what the change was.

She has not responded to repeated requests for comment or explanation.

As a result of the consultant's findings, the County Board will be asked to spend $256,300 to fix problems and eliminate risks of future mistakes. The vast majority of it will cover fees for Command Central LLC, the software vendor, to program equipment for the May and June recall elections and next month's primary. Only $4,000 is being sought to train other staff on election system programming - a job Nickolaus kept to herself. The consultant, SysLogic Inc., initially was hired to perform the study for $15,000.

In a June 29 email to Vrakas' chief of staff Shawn Lundie explaining the lead-up to the April 3 election, a state election official summarized what prompted the last-minute programming change.

State elections officials found that on Friday, March 30, days before the election, the Town of Waukesha was the only remaining community that had wrongly grouped parts of two congressional districts into the same vote reporting unit. County clerks statewide had been warned by the elections board about avoiding that kind of problem two months earlier.

Nickolaus, who programs the ballot machines for many of the county's smaller municipalities, including the Town of Waukesha, had to reprogram the town's machines to fix the mistake. According to the email, Nickolaus raised concerns about the short time frame needed for another public testing - including advance public notice - before the following Tuesday election.

State election supervisor Ross Hein said the public testing could be done on Monday, the day before the election, the email says.

Public test skipped

According to Lundie's emailed response, Nickolaus told him a public test was not done that day.

Government Accountability Board spokesman Reid Magney said Wednesday that under normal circumstances, municipal clerks test ballot machines. However, he said circumstances surrounding the required retesting of the Town of Waukesha's equipment after Nickolaus programmed the changes are not known.

Town of Waukesha Clerk/Treasurer Jamie Salentine was unavailable for comment Wednesday because she was attending a weeklong training program for clerks, according to the assistant clerk.

On the April 3 election night, Nickolaus' computer system would not electronically read the memory cards and cartridges from voting machines brought in by municipal clerks across the county after her computer indicated a "mapping error."

As a result, she could not readily post vote totals, and vote reporting services and reporters were left to tally vote totals from long data tapes posted on walls outside the clerk's office. Long-delayed results came only after the county clerk's staff manually entered results from 189 reporting units with 218 polling places, many with multiple sets of data.

The day after the election, Nickolaus said she was "shocked" by the computer failure because she said the system had been tested many times.

Vrakas vowed to restore confidence in Waukesha County's election system, first asking Nickolaus to hand election duties off to her deputy for the recall elections and then instructing his Department of Administration to do whatever it took to solve the problems.

Nickolaus later announced she would not run for re-election in November.

The Personnel Committee is scheduled to take up the consultant's recommendations and funding request at its July 17 meeting. Finance Committee action is set for July 18 with full County Board action expected July 24.

About Laurel Walker
Laurel Walker covered local, school and county government for 20 years -- the last half of that at the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -- before she was named Waukesha County columnist in 1997. Today she writes about the people, places and events around metropolitan Milwaukee with a broad suburban focus. She was the youngest of nine children raised on a central Wisconsin farm before leaving the nest for journalism studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and a masters degree at the University of Oregon. She has spent the last half of her life in Waukesha County, where she and her husband raised two sons. Though she has a fondness for life in Waukesha, she eagerly partakes in the culture of the big city to the east and the recreation of the forests to the west. With sons in the arts, she has a special fondness for symphonic music concerts and art museums. She finds peace in a good book at a Northwoods getaway weekend, adventure in family visits to the east and west coasts, and satisfaction in a column well-written that reaches readers.
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