List of Contracts Awarded by Registrar of Voters

When Registrar of Voters Ray J. Ortiz requested a leave of absence from his job July 11, he said the district attorney’s investigation of his office involved suspected “irregularities” in contracts the registrar has awarded to private businesses.

County records show that since 1980, Ortiz’s office has bought nearly $4 million in equipment and services from private firms.

The contracts cover almost every aspect of the office, from printing sample ballots to computerizing lists of registered voters, and from dropping off voting booths at the polling places to verifying signatures on initiative petitions.

Neither Ortiz nor Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller will identify which of the contracts are the subject of Miller’s investigation.

Here is a summary of the major contracts Ortiz’s office has awarded since 1980:

- Data General Corp. The Los Angeles-based computer firm in 1985 sold the county a computer system worth about $566,000. The Data General computer forms the heart of Ortiz’s election management system, which has automated almost every function of his office, from voter registration information to campaign contribution statements.

- Data Information Management Systems of Ventura provides the computer programs, or software, to run the Data General computer. For this service, the firm has been paid $330,000 by the county since the beginning of 1985.

- Jeffries Banknote Co. of Los Angeles prints the sample ballots sent to every eligible county voter for each election. This task has earned the firm at least $834,000 since 1983. The Jeffries contract for the printing work has expired, and a new request for bids is about to be issued by the county. The contractor before Jeffries was Election Services Ltd., a San Diego firm that earned just over $1 million from the county.

- Computer Election Systems. This firm, with offices in Berkeley, Calif., and Texas, sold the county the punch card vote recorders and vote counters in use today, and continues to supply the punch cards. The company has had contracts with the county totaling more than $660,000 since 1980.

- Votec Inc. Another firm based in Berkeley, Votec is owned by computer consultant John Medcalf, who is the only person authorized to work on the Computer Election Systems software. Since 1983, Medcalf has received more than $80,000 from the county for his work modifying the vote-counting program and writing new programs. Medcalf also was paid to study the registrar’s operations and evaluate its use of computers, microfilm and typesetting.

- Election Data Corp. With offices in St. Charles, Ill., and Escondido, this firm has done extensive consulting work on elections in the Chicago area and in San Diego. Election Data has been paid more than $300,000 by San Diego County since 1984 for assembling the ballot pages in the vote recorders, selling voting booths and verifying signatures on petitions. The president of Election Data Corp. is Richard J. Stephens. His wife, Lora Stephens, owns Electronic Marketing Inc., which recently leased about $8,000 worth of computer equipment to the county.

- Election Validation Services Inc. This consulting firm, headed by Michael Lavelle, chairman of the Chicago Board of Elections Commissioners, has been paid more than $30,000 by the county in the past year for auditing the registrar’s computerized vote-counting system.

- Election Management Co. This firm is owned by Lance Gough, a computer consultant who worked 10 years for the Chicago Board of Elections. Gough quit the board in 1985 and formed his own firm, consulting in Chicago, San Diego and elsewhere. San Diego County has paid Gough about $7,000 for his services since the beginning of 1985. Gough also worked with Stephens last month on a $117,000 county contract for verifying signatures on petitions for a statewide ballot initiative.