‘Sometimes You Just React to Emergency Situations’ : Ortiz Denies Wrongdoing in Ordering Job Before Bids

San Diego County Registrar of Voters Ray J. Ortiz said Friday he did nothing improper when he ordered an Escondido company to begin verifying petition signatures before a contract was put out for bids.

Ortiz confirmed that he told the company, Election Data Corp., to begin work on the job two weeks before the $117,000 contract was put out for competitive bid and awarded.

The contract was awarded to Election Data June 18. It called for the verification of about 176,000 signatures on petitions seeking to place an initiative on medical malpractice on the state’s November ballot.

Ortiz said he did not realize when he first ordered the work done that the job would be as big as it turned out to be. When he saw how large the contract would be, Ortiz said, he decided it would be best to seek competitive bids. He said he did not intend to influence the bid in any way.

“I probably should have known to do it (go out to bid) right away,” Ortiz said in an interview. “Sometimes you just react to emergency situations. It happens. Put in the same position again, I’d do the same thing--maybe a little sooner.”

Ortiz is under investigation by the district attorney’s office for his handling of contracts as the county’s registrar of voters, a post he has held since 1979. Ortiz said he did not know if the contract with Election Data is one of those under investigation.

The secretary of state’s office notified San Diego County on June 2 that 100% of the signatures on the medical malpractice initiative petitions had to be verified within 30 days. In most cases, only 5% of the signatures need to be verified. The state requires full verification when the number of signatures submitted falls within 10% of the number needed to qualify an initiative for the ballot.

Within a day after he heard from the secretary of state, Ortiz said, he told the county’s chief administrative office that he intended to hire Election Data Corp. to verify the signatures. The work involves checking records to ensure that each person who signed the petition is registered to vote, and then verifying that the signature on the petition is the same as the one on the person’s voter registration form.

Ortiz said Election Data was already verifying 5% of the signatures on several other petitions in early June, so it seemed logical to have the company move on and check the names on the medical malpractice initiative petitions as well.

When he realized that the larger contract would require payment of more than $100,000, Ortiz said, he feared the county auditor would balk at paying the money without competitive bid.

Ortiz said he returned to the chief administrator’s office June 13 and asked for advice. Officials there referred him to the auditor, and the auditor’s office told him to seek bids on the project. On June 16, Ortiz sent a requisition and a letter asking the purchasing department to award a contract for the job.

In the letter, Ortiz suggested that the purchasing department seek bids from Election Data Corp. and Howard Doulder, a Huntington Beach handwriting expert. Election Data bid 67 cents per signature and won the contract. Doulder bid 95 cents. A third vendor, Election Management Co., was asked to bid but did not submit an offer. At the time, that firm’s owner, Lance Gough, was working for Election Data Corp.

San Diego County is the first jurisdiction in the nation to contract with a private business to verify signatures on initiative petitions, Ortiz said. He said a pilot project performed by Election Data Corp. a year ago showed that it cost the county almost twice as much as a private business to verify signatures.