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A vice president of election giant Election Software &
Services who figures in two separate controversies
currently raging over the way American elections
are run and American votes counted, has accused the
MadCowMorningNews of slandering him in
a
recent article, and announced plans to sue in
Federal Court in Washington, D.C.
Gary Greenhalgh
was instrumental in bringing electronic touch screen
voting to Katherine Harris’ Congressional district. He
sold $4.5 million worth of electronic voting machines to
the Republican Election Supervisor of Sarasota County in
Florida which are suspected of undercounting as many as
18,000 votes in the closely-contested Congressional
election there "won" by the Republican candidate by a
few hundred votes.
In addition to
that brouhaha, Greenhalgh, a
former employee of the Federal
Election Commission, two decades ago helped
establish the system of certification of U.S. electronic
voting systems under increasing suspicion in a drama
working its way out now concerning CIBER, Inc., a company which tests voting machines.
"A murky quasi-public
but private non-profit"
The New York
Times reported that federal investigators have
discovered appallingly haphazard testing regimes at
leading machine certifier CIBER, and barred the
firm's laboratory in Huntsville Alabama, which had been
responsible for testing
most of the nation's electronic voting systems, from
approving any new machines.
Greenhalgh was
President during the 1980’s of a company at the
center of this dispute. The Election Center is a
murky private non-profit based in Houston whose
ill-defined quasi-public role in “certifying the
certifiers” is at odds, say many computer experts, with
the funding it has received from the very companies
whose testing it approves, including CIBER.
Election industry veteran Greenhalgh’s
30-year history in the election industry offers a window
on the world of American elections, how they are
conducted, and why today there is a growing storm of
controversy
over whether American’s sacred right to vote includes a
sacred right to have that vote counted fairly and
accurately...
Or not.
An off-tackle play you won't want to
miss
In
a series of emails last week Greenhalgh alleged he was
slandered by a NOV 15 2006 story headlined “Voting
Machine Official in Sarasota Recount in Election Bribery
Scandal.”
The emails
contained a set of “interrogatories.” This “discovery,”
he wrote, is “just like that you would encounter if I
decide to sue you, personally, in the Federal
District court in Alexandria, Virginia.”
There is no
doubt that he is serious:
Greenhalgh
has an extensive history of litigation against
individuals and government officials, and apparently
sued one county five separate times. Many of those who
he has sued have characterized his lawsuits as
“frivolous’ and “filed to harass.”
And in one email,
he fairly chortled, “I am like Vince Lombardi
with the Green Bay Packers: Here comes the end sweep:
Try to stop me!”
In the interests
of fairness, (as well of avoiding
another lawsuit) we’ll carefully examine Greenhalgh’s allegations,
as well as how his history in the industry matches up
with the sentiments expressed in the quote
which begins this story.
"Voting machines are different"
The quote appears
in a July 11,
1990 story headlined "FBI TALKS TO
EX-SHOUP EXEC; VOTING MACHINE TESTIMONY RESUMES,”
in the Memphis Commercial Appeal...
Greenhalgh, who
served with the Federal Election Commission from 1975
to 1985 as director of the FEC clearinghouse on
election administration and the office of information,
said "Voting machines are different from other things
bought by a government.
"In purchasing
voting equipment, election officials must rely heavily
on the integrity, honesty and reliability of the
vendor selling them this equipment," he said.
Integrity, honest
reliability: Do these qualities even exist in the
companies which count American votes?
Let’s take a
look.
In the cell next to Abramoff?
Greenhalgh
cites as slanderous our assertion that his history in the
election industry “has been filled with textbook
examples of American elections being conducted by people
whose sheer brazen corruption equals that
of any pack of Washington lobbyists
sharing Jack Abramoff's Skybox at a Redskin game.”
He wrote: “You
stated that my ‘brazen corruption equals that of any
pack of Washington lobbyists.’ As you know, one of your
examples, Jack Abramoff, is now in prison. Please
provide to me: A. What prison am I now in? B. What
crimes I have been convicted of?”
In point of fact
we said nothing
of the kind. Here's the full quote:
“Greenhalgh's
Ivotronic machines allegedly failed to register over
18,000 votes in Sarasota County last week; his touch
screen machines were almost entirely responsible for
the massive 13% undercount of votes which marred the
closest Congressional contest in the country, which
pitted Republican Vern Buchanan against Democrat
Christine Jennings.
Thus it is not
incidental to discussion of the fairness of that
contest that the curriculum vitae of one of its key
players, the man who brought touch screen voting to
the hometown of Katherine Harris, has been filled with
textbook examples of American elections being
conducted by people whose sheer brazen corruption
equals that of any pack of Washington lobbyists
sharing Jack Abramoff's Skybox at a Redskin game with
the San Diego "defense contractor" buddies of
convicted grifter Randy "Duke" Cunningham.’
Is the truth a defense against
a charge of libel?
Greenhalgh’s election
career has been documented in the press. And news
archives contain numerous examples from Greenhalgh's
career which do,
in fact, feature "textbook examples of American elections
being conducted by people whose sheer brazen corruption
equals that of any pack of Washington lobbyists sharing
Jack Abramoff's.”
Greenhalgh, moreover, is no fly by night operator, or
peripheral player, hanging out with a bad element on the
fringes of the industry. As he reminded us in an email,
he was the Assistant Staff Director at the Federal
Election Commission for 13 years. He has a PhD. He
founded the Election Center in Houston, an
influential if controversial organization.
Yet we wouldn't trust many of the people he's been
associated with in the "election industry" to hold
our umbrella while we put on our raincoat. So here's the
big question:
Why
are we forced to trust them with our sacred right to
vote?
Same as it ever was. As above, so
below. Whatever.
On
Thursday we’ll offer a fuller narrative of incidents in
Greenhalgh's career which shed light on corruption in
the election services
industry. But here's a taste...
From the article
already quoted from the Memphis
Commercial Appeal
on July
11, 1990
headlined "FBI TALKS TO EX-SHOUP EXEC; VOTING
MACHINE TESTIMONY.”
The ex-Shoup executive
talking to the FBI is Greenhalgh himself. Here are the
excerpts relating to Greenhalgh in a familiar recitation of election
industry corruption.
(our emphasis added)...
A former R. F.
Shoup Co. official said Tuesday said he has been
interviewed by the FBI in Memphis and by investigators
in New York about activities of his former employer.
Gary L.
Greenhalgh is a former federal elections official and
now is president of a voting equipment marketing firm
that represents Shoup competitor MicroVote. From
April 1987 until 1989, he was vice president of
operations and marketing for Shoup, which has
headquarters in the Philadelphia suburb of Bryn Mawr,
Pa.
Greenhalgh's
revelation Tuesday came a day before a federal grand
jury in Memphis was to resume hearing testimony in an
investigation of Shoup operations in Tennessee. Local
Election Commission chairman O. C. Pleasant has been
called to testify in connection with the investigation
of a $ 4.4 million sale of Shouptronic voting machines
to Shelby County.
The grand jury here is looking at the Shelby County sale
and questioning why Shouptronic was the only voting
machine certified for sale in Tennessee when the
transaction occurred in 1985. Only last month,
MicroVote became the second electronic voting machine
approved for sale in the state.
Greenhalgh, who
served with the Federal Election Commission from 1975 to
1985 as director of the FEC clearinghouse on election
administration and the office of information, said
''Voting machines are different from other things bought
by a government.
"In purchasing
voting equipment, election officials must rely heavily
on the integrity, honesty and reliability of the vendor
selling them this equipment," he said.
"I feel Mr.
Shoup's demonstrated track record in the election field
throws considerable doubt on his personal integrity and
honesty," Greenhalgh said.
He pointed to Shoup's
1979 conviction for conspiring to defraud the federal
government in connection with a bribe attempt to obtain
voting machine business.
Shoup could not
be reached Tuesday for a response.
It's
'drop a dime' on the boss week
The
context is clear: Greenhalgh is a former employee of
Shoup. He is now a competitor. And he’s “dropping a
dime” on his former boss.
So far so good.
But Shoup was convicted in 1979.
Greenhalgh went to work for him, according to the
article, in 1987. He had no scruples at
that time,
apparently, about working for a convicted felon.
What's changed? The
two men are now competitors,
for the same contract.
Question for
Mr. Greenhalgh: If “election officials must rely
heavily on the integrity, honesty and reliability of the
vendor selling them this equipment,” as you state, what
should they make of
the fact that you willingly worked for a
convicted felon?
The supreme irony
here is that, as a convicted
felon,
Ransom
Shoup
wouldn't even be permitted to vote in
many states, like Florida. But
these same states apparently have no scruples about
allowing companies owned by convicted
felons to count the vote
This lack of scruples extends
to appearances on television chat shows as well. Shoup
appeared on CNN's show Burden of Proof with Greta
Van
Sustern after the 2000 election
debacle, along with Florida Gov Jeb Bush, opining about the state
of American democracy.
It's almost too ironic for words.
Pre-contra freedom
fighters at their leisure
But back
to the story in the Memphis Commercial Appeal. It
highlights a continuing pattern of criminality at Shoup
(one of the founding firms in the election
services industry.)
Convicted in
1979, under FBI investigation for wrongdoing just eight
years later...and, as we'll see in a moment, there's
more.
But... here's the point: We'd have never
heard about any of this (and neither would you)
were it not for Gary L. Greenhalgh.
His career, (or
at least that portion of it which has been documented in
our nation's press) will serve as a beacon, lighting out
way to the truth about the state of the American
electoral process.
Note:
The sorry state of electoral affairs cannot be blamed solely
on the election companies.
For example, in a November 29, 1985 story
in the Chicago Tribune, a Shoup salesman reports that the
first question potential customers usually ask is, "Can the
machines be rigged?"
Tacho. We hardly knew you.
The Tribune relates an anecdote from an American who
happened to be in the palace of then-Nicaraguan
dictator, Anastasio Somoza, when
Ransom
Shoup
II was trying to sell him Shoup machines.
"Tacho
(Somoza) had one question," the man recalled.
"'Can I be guaranteed the election?'"
But let's return
to Ransom Shoup to provide the coda for this journey to
the savage heart of the American electoral process.
When
things get really bad, its often time to lie low for a
while. That's, presumably, the gist of a
synopsis we found of a story which ran in the New York Times
on
April 5, 1972...
“Shoup Voting
Machine Corp will stop marketing election equipment and
will distribute its products through Computer Election
Systems Inc. The move is linked to 'adverse publicity'
resulting from actions of ex-Shoup execs, who
were sentenced for fraud in a Florida case."
Officers of Shoup Voting Machine Co., as it
happens, were convicted in Tampa, Florida
in 1971 for bribing politicians.
Convicted?
In (gasp) Florida? No!
Surely not
Florida!
Thursday:
"But wait. There's more." |