July 11, 1990, Wednesday, FINAL EDITION


FBI TALKS TO EX-SHOUP EXEC;
VOTING MACHINE TESTIMONY RESUMES


BYLINE: Terry Keeter; The Commercial Appeal

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.

 

Shoup is also at the center of a district attorney's investigation in New York City, where an official of another company reported a bribe solicitation from an election official.

 

Investigators there also are looking at how Shoup obtained a secret report that compared strengths and weaknesses of various voting systems. Cliff Wilson, Shoup vice president, said the report arrived unsolicited in an unmarked envelope and that it was not used in preparing the Shoup bid on what would have been a world record $ 50 million voting machine purchase in New York.

 

The federal grand jury here has subpoenaed all records relating to Shoup from the local Election Commission, state Election Commission, County Commission and county purchasing department.

 

David Collins, who was state coordinator of elections when Shoup was certified for sale in Tennessee, testified earlier, along with Tommy Powell, who was on the state Election Commission at the time. Both the coordinator and the commission must certify a voting machine for sale in the state. Powell entered a guilty plea to unrelated federal charges earlier and has assisted the federal investigators in the Rocky Top probe.

 

The grand jury has also heard testimony from two Shoup employees - Tony Ferrari and Judith Stokes. Ferrari, sales representative for the firm, said earlier that he knew of nothing irregular in the sale. Ms. Stokes was hired by Shoup to demonstrate the voting machines.

 

Pleasant said he was told that he was not a subject of the investigation and was called to testify because he was chairman during the search for a voting system. ''What they want to know is how the search was conducted, the procedures in the search and whether there was any undue influence,'' he said, adding that he knew of nothing out of line in the search or the Election Commission decision to recommend the County Commission purchase 1,200 Shouptronic machines.

 

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.