'A Closely Managed Project': Texas Voter Database

By Greg Moses

“This is a very closely managed project,” said a well placed source at the Secretary of State’s (SOS) office during our second visit to review the thick contract for the Texas voter database. As an example of the state’s control over the project, the contract with IBM stipulates that any assignments or reassignments of personnel to the project must be approved in writing by the SOS. A “schedule of employees” is one item that was to be hashed out during the planning phase of the project. The initial IBM project manager has already been replaced.

As we reported after the first visit, the project is running a little behind schedule. For example the state and contractors were supposed to agree on a list of “User Acceptance Criteria” (UAC) in mid-January, but the list was not completed until the last week of March. The UAC specifies what the state wants from the contractors before the project will be considered complete. The UAC is one document we’ve asked to review during our third visit coming up this week.

According to a Statement of Work (SOW) filed with the HAVA database contract Oct. 22, 2004, the total contract with IBM and Hart InterCivic is scheduled to cost $12 million as follows:

• $5.3 million in staffing fees
• $29,000 in equipment and supplies
• $224,000 in travel and living expenses
• $4 million to Hart InterCivic in licensing fees for eRegistry software
• $2.4 million to Hart for service and maintenance work at a rate of $600,000 per year for four years after the system is up and running

In addition to the $12 million contract, the state has agreed to purchase $1.2 million in hardware and software.

The $4 million in licensing fees to Hart will be paid in two installments: $975,000 upon release of Hart 2 (scheduled for March 15, see report from our first week review) and the rest upon the state’s acceptance of the project.

Since the project relies on Commercial Off-The-Shelf software (COTS) the state receives the proprietary software from Hart InterCivic via an escrow service. DSI Technology Escrow Services of San Diego will be the escrow service for the Logical Data Model, Entity Relationship Diagram, and the DDL (data definition language) database creation slip.

In addition to Hart InterCivic, there are four other sub-contractors to the IBM-led project. Sub-contractor Geo Decisions of Austin will help with mapping features for $404,000 or five percent of the contract.

Three subcontractors will help with interface development, conversion, and training: Texas Gov Link, Inc. of Austin will be paid $640,000 or eight percent of the total contract; Precision Task Group of Houston will be paid $302,000 or four percent of the contract; and Maximus of Reston, VA will receive $466,000 or six percent of the contract.

GovLink and Precision Task are listed as HUB contractors (Historically Underutilized Businesses) for a total of 12 percent of the project.

On the one hand, the database looks straightforward. It is supposed to enable the state to perform seven basic tasks: register a new voter, cancel a voter, change a voter, search on a voter, create an official voting list, create a mass mailout of certificates, and create lists of registered voters.

But the power of the database is expressed in 18 sub-routines that will be performed each time a new voter is added, listed as follows: assign a voter status; assign a certificate number/unique identifier; assign a precinct number; assign appropriate jurisdictional codes; assign a valid from date; assign an EDR date; track agency code entered for NVRA; deposit an entry into the voter activity window; validate for any missing data on the data entry window; compare DOB to EDR date to ensure voter will be 18 years of age; check for internal duplicates; check of duplication on a statewide basis; verify TDL/ID or SSN information with DPS; verify street against address index standardization; if former county of residence is provided, track information for previous county, generate
letter or electronic notice to former county; typical validation checks on numeric fields vs character fields; create a voter registration certificate; track for Chapter 19 reimbursement.

The contract cost of the project is based on 203 key assumptions such as, “The State will provide the Data Model for the Statewide GIS data layer of street centerlines and
address ranges by procuring the GDT commercial data set.” Should any of the assumptions vary from what actually takes place, then the contract costs may vary as well.

The contract stipulates that public servants have received no offer of employment or anything else of future value in return for granting the contract to IBM and Hart InterCivic.

There is a HAVA mandate that every state have a central database of voter registrations by Jan. 1. We have invited some activists to join in the review, but generally the feedback we get is that “bandwidth” on election activism is already maxxed out. Which is bad news and good. The bad news is that bandwidth is maxxed out. The good news is that our work on the issue expands the available bandwidth. Just the kind of project we look for.

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Note: see report from our first week of documentary review.