Tennessee: Shelby County Election Commission Attorney Shares Office with ES&S Lobbyist | Jackson Baker/Memphis Flyer
In advance of a scheduled meeting Thursday afternoon at which county Election Administrator Linda Phillips is expected to reveal her preference for a vendor of new election machines for Shelby County, proponents of hand-marked voting devices expressed alarm over a potential link between an Election Commission lawyer and one of the vendors bidding on the county contract. The ES&S company, vendor of the controversial Diebold election machines now in use county elections and known to be a bidder for the contract on behalf of a line of devices that mark ballots by mechanical means, is represented by the lobbying firm of MNA Government Relations, which leases space in its Nashville office to the Memphis-Nashville law firm of Harris-Shelton. Both John Ryder and Pablo Varela, attorneys for the Election Commission, are principals of the law firm, and Ryder’s name appears in tandem with that of MNA on the interactive glass register in the lobby of Nashville’s Bank of America Building. Upstairs on the 10th floor, a metal plaque outside the office door of MNA lists the two companies together, with the company name of MNA followed by a forward slash and then the name of the law firm. [See photos.]