Ortiz Goes East Tuesday for Job During D.A. Probe

Ray Ortiz, the San Diego County registrar of voters who is under investigation by the county district attorney’s office, will leave Tuesday to begin an interim job as consultant for a Pennsylvania voting machine manufacturer.

Ortiz said he’ll work as a consultant until the district attorney’s office completes its investigation of alleged criminal irregularities in contracts awarded to private firms by Ortiz and his department. Ortiz has held the county job since 1979. He voluntarily placed himself on unpaid leave of absence July 11 when the investigation became public.

He said Saturday that the firm, R.P. Shoupe Co. of Bryn Mawr, manufactures sophisticated electronic voting machines and election equipment to sell to governmental agencies in the Eastern and Midwestern United States, Central America and South America.

The 51-year-old San Diego County official said he will be traveling throughout the country, to the Caribbean and South America as an elections consultant for the firm. He refused to disclose his salary with the private firm.

“I am bilingual, which will come in handy in this field,” Ortiz said.

He said he will initially go to Nashville, Tenn., to familiarize himself with the firm’s equipment and methods of operation.

The company has never done business in San Diego County or in the state, Ortiz confirmed, and the job should not pose a conflict of interest. Ortiz said he will remain on the interim job “until the investigation of my department is completed,” but he added that he would give “serious consideration” to leaving his $55,000-a-year county post permanently if the probe was not completed by Sept. 1.

Ortiz said Saturday that he has no information as to the progress of the investigation against him and is concerned because “these matters sometimes take a long, long time to be completed.”

He said he plans to work on a “week to week” basis for the company and will not resign from his county position now.