Election Systems & Software (ES&S)

Election Systems & Software operated under the name American Information Systems from its inception in the early 1980s until around 1998.

* = It was founded by Todd and Bob Urosevich, originally under the name Data Mark.

* = The Urosevich brothers obtained financing from the Ahmanson family, who took a 68 percent controlling interest.

? Vested interests: ES&S was given its grubstake (while operating under the name American Information Systems) in 1984 when the billionaire Ahmanson family injected enough cash to get ahold of a 68 percent ownership. This wealthy family has been instrumental in making the Republican Party take a hard right turn — pouring money into conservative Christian candidates and right-wing agendas.

They were instrumental in getting at least 24 conservatives into the California legislature; launching prop. 209, California's successful anti-affirmative action law; financing Prop. 22, California's effort to ban gay marriages; financing efforts to remove evolution from school curriculi; and financing the Chalcedon Institute, which reportedly believes in the death penalty for homosexuality and other "sins." The Ahmansons are heirs to the Home Savings of America fortune, which was the largest savings and loan association in the world during the rollicking 1980s (while the S&L scandals were taking place.) Howard Ahmanson is a major benefactor of the Christian reconstructionist movement, whose followers wish to turn certain tenets of the Bible into national law.

? Skating too close to criminal prosecutions and kickbacks...02/05/2002, The Baton Rouge Advocate reports that Arkansas Secretary of State Bill McCuen pleaded guilty to felony charges that he took bribes, evaded taxes and accepted kickbacks. Part of the charges related to election systems. Tom Eschberger, who became a Vice President for ES&S, took an immunity deal and testified against McCuen.

? And in Florida, Jeb Bush's first choice as running mate in 1998 was Sandra Mortham. According to the Tallahasee Democrat (10/6/2002) Mortham, was a paid lobbyist for ES&S and received a commission for every county that bought its touch-screen machines. Mortham says there was nothing improper about the deals, but Broward County Commissioner Ben Graber disagreed, alleging conflict of interest.

? And let's look at Alex Sheshunoff, from the BRC merger: He was sued by the SEC for manipulating the stock price of BRC using a technique called "marking the close."

? John Gottschalk has been reported as a director for both the World-Herald Company Inc. (concentrating on the non-newspaper subsidiaries) and ES&S. He was also involved with Senator Hagel in the World USO, has relationships with James Baker; he is listed as a USO pal of George W. Bush.

? The World-Herald Company, Inc. has a newspaper and, among all their other operations, a nationwide communications network with databases containing personal information on almost everyone in the USA, large direct mailing firms, phone message broadcasting, fax blasting, mass e-mailing, publicity, advertising, Internet services, printing, as well as elections services — and voter registration services(7). The World Companies have operations in Texas, Illinois, Georgia, Nebraska, California, Iowa and Arizona — and almost all of the companies listed above have nothing to do with newspapers. The concern here relates to access to these operations, which are sometimes used for political marketing, in combination with ES&S, which does voter registration services. It would be a conflict of interest for a voter registration program to have access these database and marketing capabilities IF political vested interests were involved. Because we don't have full disclosure — we don't know what percentage of stock the major World-Herald stockholders have, or which ones they are, and because we don't know if these companies are wholly owned subsidiaries or partnerships, it is hard to judge conflict of interest on this.

The investment group related to the Ahmansons sold their shares in 1987 to the McCarthy Group (35%) and the World-Herald Company, Inc. (45%)

* = Involved with the McCarthy Group: Michael R. McCarthy, Chairman
* = Senator Chuck Hagel: According to the Congressional Quarterly, Republican senator Chuck Hagel was Chairman of American Information Systems.

Omaha World-Herald Company:
Employees own approximately 80%. Of the 280 employees, only 28 currently own more than one-half of one percent. World-Herald employee stockholder maximum is 15%, so under the ownership rules, it is possible for just a few shareholders to hold significant sway in voting.

* = ? - Two of the 28 main shareholders (John Gottschalk and A. William Kernen) are on the Board of Directors for the Omaha World-Herald and ES&S. In 1995, both went public with an effort to reoganize the company so that they could concentrate less on the newspaper and more on other World Company investments. The reorganization was blocked in a lawsuit, which later settled.

* = ? - The Omaha World-Herald also owns: World Investments Inc., World Marketing Inc., World Events Inc., World Diversified Inc., World Newspapers Inc., MBS (a New York database marketing company), ACE Mailing Services (Atlanta, Georgia), Art & Technology (Omaha), Lee Marketing Services (Dallas, TX), World Technologies Inc. (Omaha), World Marketing Integrated Solutions, Total Fulfillment (Tempe AZ), The Rylander Company (Chicago IL), Redstone Communications (Omaha).

Other ES&S owners: In 1997-98 American Information Systems acquired Business Records Corp., a Texas-based election company originally called Cronus Industries. Twenty percent of the stock of the merged company was given to BRC owners. Among the owners of BRC/Cronus:

Caroline Hunt, of the Hunt Oil family, through her investment group (Rosewood Financial Partners)

Alex Sheshunoff, a financial data publisher

The late P.E. Esping, formerly of Omaha, founded First Data Merchant Services

Charter Oak Partners, an affiliate of Rothschild Realty Inc., which is an affiliate of Rothschild, Inc.

C.A. Rundell, CEO of Integrated Securities Systems, Inc., associated with Dallas-based Renaissance Capital Group Inc.: Renaissance U.S. Growth & Income Trust P.L.C., known as Rusgit, and Renaissance Three.

Ed Belanger president and CEO of CDS Technologies

Buttonwood Capital Corp — Bass brother billionaires, I think.

L.D. Brinkman Corp. Its Vice-President and General Counsel Thad R. Finley also worked for Hunt International Resources Corporation.

William D. Oates of InterPro

All this, but we still don't know the names of the owners of ES&S. Without disclosure we really have no idea who we are dealing with.

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