Election Systems & Software is a powerful Omaha-based company that sells election equipment across the United States. Advocates contend ES&S needs more regulation and transparency in order to protect our democracy.

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Two top execs involved with Election Systems & Software essentially gave their businesses an "A" in ethics.

This happened when Michael R. McCarthy and Aldo Tesi granted interviews to a local university-based organization called the Business Ethics Alliance. inessethicsalliance.org/the-mccarthy-groupand inessethicsalliance.org/election-systems-softwareand inessethicsalliance.org/what-we-do/

The Alliance is in Omaha, Nebraska. So is McCarthy Capital and McCarthy Group LLC, two investment companies founded by McCarthy with connections to ES&S.

ES&S is registered in Texas, even though it is headquartered in Omaha. click here

How ES&S operates is important because it affects a basic and essential part of our form of government.

Some observers contend the public should have more information about ES&S because of the role election companies play in our democracy.

"It's hard to think of many services that are of greater public importance than running our elections," said Lawrence Norden, an expert on voting machines with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's law school, in a US News article. "The public should know who is doing that and who has control over the companies that are doing that."

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Despite the good grades the businessmen handed out during the ethics interviews, numerous articles on ES&S raise questions about some of the behavior of a company that touches up to more than 80 million voters across the country. click here

Advocates and journalists, among others, want to know if foreign individuals or interests have money invested directly or indirectly in ES&S. The company insists only Americans do. But skeptics paint a more complicated picture that makes it more difficult to determine what money is going where.

Clearly, a lot of money flows through ES&S and the McCarthy organizations.

ES&S reported annual revenue of more than $115 million in 2018, according to Dunn & Bradstreet. The financial data firm notes that ES&S is "The largest voting machine company in the U.S.," adding, its "equipment supports elections in 4,500 election jurisdiction in more than 41 U.S.states and four countries, including Canada".

The portfolio page of McCarthy Capital ties the investment company to ES&S. .mccarthycapital.com/portfolio/

Wikipedia, an online publication, indicates that McCarthy Group LLC, another group connected to Mike McCarthy, manages more than $1 billion in assets. It says that ES&S is a subsidiary of McCarthy Group, LLC.

wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_McCarthy_(businessman)

But the lines of ownership get more blurred. McCarthy, and Thomas Burt, the president and CEO of ES&S, are officers at Government Systems, Software & Services, Inc., which offers support for sales of electronic election equipment. Government Systems lists its address as the same Omaha address as the headquarters for ES&S. ncorporates.com/companies/us_ne/10113031

People who want to learn more about how ES&S functions also ask whether the company uses parts made in China, a country that is not always friendly with the U.S.

"NBC News examined publicly available online shipping records for ES&S for the past five years and found that many parts, including electronics and tablets, were made in China and the Philippines, raising concerns about technology theft or sabotage.

When NBC took a tour in this country, "the president of ES&S "said the overseas facilities are 'very secure'". He said the final assembly of voting machines takes place in the U.S.

However, NBC added, "Chinese manufacturers can be forced to cooperate with requests from Chinese intelligence officials to share any information about the technology and therefore pose a risk for U.S. companies, NBC News analyst Frank Figliuzzi, a former assistant director of the FBI for counterintelligence, said. That could include intellectual property, such as source code, materials or blueprints. There is also the concern of machines shipped with undetected vulnerabilities or backdoors that could allow tampering. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/chinese-parts-hidden-ownership-growing-scrutiny-inside-america-s-biggest-n1104516

Articles examining the business practices of ES&S go back at least two decades, when the AP reported that the former Florida secretary of state lobbied government officials to buy ES&S equipment when she worked for the Florida Association of Counties.

But ES&S started getting more scrutiny after the federal government revealed that Russia attacked U.S. elections in 2016.

Fair Fight Action, an election protection and voting rights group, has compiled extensive research on how ES&S conducts business.

click here

And a 2018 Miami Herald article documents some ways ES&S entices government officials to buy their products.

"The nation's largest voting equipment vendor has for at least nine years coaxed state and local elections officials to serve on an 'advisory board' that gathers twice annually for company-sponsored conferences, including one last year at a ritzy Las Vegas resort hotel.

"The arrangement could compromise the integrity of the officials' decisions or at the very least, the optics of those decisions at a time when they are faced with efforts by Russia and perhaps other nations to disrupt the upcoming mid-term elections, ethics and elections experts said." https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article213558729.html

Sometimes ES&S plays nice. But not always. An investigative report contends the company plays rough when it doesn't get its way.

"A ProPublica examination of ES&S shows it has fought hard to keep its dominance in the face of repeated controversies. The company has a reputation among both its competitors and election officials for routinely going to court when it fails to win contracts or has them taken away, suing voting jurisdictions, rivals, advocates for greater election security and others." click here

Lobbying, enticing government officials with fancy meetings and filing lawsuits aren't the only ways ES&S protects its turf.

The company position is also bolstered by campaign contributions, with people who worked as lobbyists for ES&S giving money to Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell before he blocked two Democratic-backed election-security bills.

"The plans would likely burden the two largest electronic voting machine vendors in the United States, Election Systems & Software and Dominion Voting Systems, with new regulations and financial burdens," according to Newsweek. click here

Newsweek added, "...on February 19 and March 4 Emily Kirlin and Jen Olson, who have lobbied on behalf of Election Systems & Software over the last year donated $1,000 to McConnell each."

This is just a sample of controversies swirling around the leader of the pack in the business of voting in America.

Unfortunately, it is unclear whether the House and Senate in Washington D.C. will provide the oversight and legislative action necessary to hold these powerful election companies accountable and make them more transparent.

Which leads me back to the Business Ethics Alliance in Omaha.

I sent an email this weekend to Professor Beverly Kracher, the founder and Senior Ethicist there. I shared with her some of the information I've acquired about ES&S. And I asked her to comment on the ethical implications of the issues raised.

I have not heard back from her. Maybe she is busy. Perhaps Professor Kracher did not want to be quoted in an article. Whatever the reason, I have a new idea.

Maybe the Business Ethics Alliance can hold public forums to explore the purported actions of ES&S and their ethical implications.

Who knows? Maybe C-SPAN would even cover the event.

(Article changed on June 20, 2020 at 15:12)

(Article changed on June 21, 2020 at 12:51)

Authors Bio:

Steve Schneider lives in South Florida. He writes articles for Op Ed News and Democracy Chronicles.