Worley: The Feds Messed Me Up!

Here's the timeline:

• 12 August 2003 - Secretary of State Nancy Worley releases "Request for Proposals" for new statewide voter registration computer system.


• 26 September 2003 - Deadline for vendors to respond to the "Request for Proposals".
  
• 27 May 2005 - Secretary Worley announces her decision of Diebold, Inc., as the successful vendor to be award the contract for the voter registration system.
  
• August 2005 - Secretary Worley and Diebold are unable to reach agreement on the contract for the new voter registration system due to an issue over licensing versus purchase of the software for the system.
  
• August 2005 - According to The Huntsville Times report on 4 September 2005, Secretary Worley apparently issues a new "Request for Proposals" (RFP). Unlike the original RFP, this modified RFP provides that the state may license the software rather than purchase it.
  
• 1 September 2005 - According to The Huntsville Times report, the deadline for the vendors to submit new responses to the revised RFP.
  

Worley stated that the modified "Request for Proposals" affects only the provision regarding the purchase or licensing of the software from the vendor. And, therefore, that appears to be the only part of the new responses she intends to review. She told The Huntsville Times:

"We don't have to go back and re-read all of the proposals; we've already read them," she said. "We don't have to go back, in my opinion, and have any kind of technical group evaluate the proposals because they've already been evaluated from a technical standpoint."

I wonder if she's having the vendors certify that they are not amending any other part of their response to the RFP. Or was she asking them to submit new information regarding only the licensing/purchasing issue? If they are resubmitting a complete response, then it is incumbent upon her to ensure that no other changes are made in the details of other sections.

Again, though, Nancy Worley has shown her incompetency to handle the business of the Secretary of State:

• From the time she released the RFP, it took her 21 months to announce the vendor who would get the contract.
  
• From the time she announced Diebold as the selected vendor, roughly 3 months passed before she and Diebold determined that Diebold was apparently not planning to comply with the RFP's requirement that ownership of the software be given to the State of Alabama.
  
• When she realized that Diebold was holding firm on the licensing issue, Worley decided to reissue the RFP to allow for licensing.
  
• When she selects a new vendor based on the revised RFP, she will have approximately 4 months to negotiate the contract, purchase computer hardware and have the system installed by 1 January 2006. She negotiated with Diebold for 3 months after selecting them from the original RFP.
  

My questions for Worley: Did the Diebold response to the original RFP specify it would comply with the transfer of ownership of the software to the State of Alabama? If it did, then why did this become an issue during the contract negotiation? If it did not, why did she choose Diebold in the first place?

It appears to me that Worley is trying to clean up a mess she created. In my opinion, she released a flawed RFP: she should have known that major vendors of election software would be unwilling to give up ownership of their intellectual property. Once involved in the contract negotiations with Diebold, that fact suddenly became crystal clear to her.

After discontinuing negotiations with Diebold, she chose to reissue a new RFP allowing for licensing. Does this mean that none of the original respondants were willing to transfer ownership of their software to the State? Or does this mean that Worley is finding a way to ensure that Diebold can get contract?

Robin Foster, the president of the Alabama Board of Registrars Association, told The Huntsville Times that this whole process could have been handled better. The Times indicated that Worley disagreed:

Worley disagreed. "Obviously this has been a flawed process from the federal level," she said, because the government was late in issuing directions for the state.

I'm not sure what the federal government's responsiblity was in this. It appears that Worley is trying to find yet another scapegoat for her mismanagement of the Secretary of State's office, just as she has blamed previous criticism on racism and partisan politics.