Pat Anderson wins GOP endorsement for state auditor

Former State Auditor Pat Anderson got the nod from GOP activists at the state convention to campaign for her old job. She will face off against current State Auditor Rebecca Otto, who says that during Anderson’s tenure as auditor, many mistakes were made.

“I think we have very clear differences,” Otto said in a statement early Friday morning. “Pat spent her time in office grandstanding for partisan causes as a self-described ‘liberals worst nightmare’ while making hundreds of millions of dollars in financial errors. I’ve done nearly three times as many investigations as she did, and earned the national nonpartisan Excellence in Accountability Award for my work on innovation and efficiency.”

Otto is referring to $12 million in accounting mistakes she says Anderson made in 2006 in auditing state payments to school districts.

Anderson also came under fire in 2006 when a series of laptop thefts from her office caused private data on 500 public employees and 1,900 participants in state programs to end up in the hands of unknown thieves.

Anderson says that Otto has been as much as six month late on some audits.

Also endorsed on Thursday: Dan Severson for Secretary of State and Christopher Barden for Attorney General.