We must know about Conny McCormack

[Helga Scow Stern]

We need to check into it, and fast, because she has dogged Shelley's proposals every step of the way. She filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of the four Diebold counties in CA. She worked in Texas in elections in the '80's, and has worked around the world as an adviser. Perhaps she has become too friendly with some of the vendors? Or not. We need to know.

Now she is one of Shelley's main persecutors and is seeking to overturn what he has done, and fast. She is calling it a "big mess".

I don't know what she's about, but we had better find out.

I am busy googling it,and I welcome anyone to jump in.

Here are some links:

bio, posted in CA forum:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=141x6818#6828

article from June 03, detailing her "concerns":
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m5072/is_23_26/ai_n6076564

Here is her picture:

[catzies]

1. Worked in Texas elections? That alone stinks to high heaven.

WTG, Ojai Person! :thumbsup:

[Helga Scow Stern]

2. Thanks. We need to find out what's going on then scream about it.

[Wilms]

7. And the Armenian election...largely considered a joke. n/t

[Helga Scow Stern]

9. Also in San Diego, which was a Diebold county

one of 14. It worked things out with Diebold and was not one of the 4 for which McCormack sued.

http://www.bakersfield.com/opinion/editorial/story/4752789p-4803022c.html

Fourteen California counties, including Kern, are locked in battle with Secretary of State Kevin Shelley over the security and accuracy of new electronic voting systems touch-screens and the like that they hoped to use in the November election.

The 2000 Florida fiasco touched off a nationwide campaign to upgrade the way Americans vote, with states and counties scrambling for federal dollars to modernize equipment. This generally meant dumping paper-based systems, such as the one Kern used successfully for decades, and buying touch-screen computer-based systems.

Although Kern election officials rave about their new system's performance in the March primary, some California counties reported problems that prevented votes from being cast or counted properly. Similar reports were heard in other states.To add fuel to the fire of controversy, computer scientists analyzed Diebold's computer software and began howling about its flaws and security breaches.
Over the even louder howls of county elections officials, Shelley temporarily banned the use of electronic systems in 10 California counties until security steps are taken. These steps require the manufacturer to hand over their "secret" proprietary software codes for analysis.

In four other counties, including Kern, Shelley banned use of the systems altogether. Shelley claims manufacturer Diebold lied to the four counties when it sold systems that lacked federal certification.
Of the four, San Diego and San Joaquin counties have amended their contracts with Diebold, sticking the company with the added cost of using an alternative system in November. Solano County fired Diebold. Kern still is negotiating with Diebold. Meanwhile Kern joined a small group of counties in suing Shelley to overturn his ban.

So far, Orange, Merced and Santa Clara counties have met Shelley's demands that include giving voters the choice of using paper ballots, improving poll worker training and requiring manufacturers to reveal their software. Rightfully, Shelley is insisting that counties create a paper "audit trail" by 2006 that will allow a manual recount in the event of a disputed election. The head of the federal Election Assistance Commission is joining Shelley's demands for added security and government oversight of the electronic voting systems.

[Pacifist Patriot]

3. Wow!

I've had my head in the sand of academia for a couple of weeks so I've missed most of this story. I'm struggling to catch up. I googled Conny McCormack and must say her position with respect to computerizing elections is chilling. Is she in an appointed or elected position?

[Helga Scow Stern]

4. Appointed, according to Andy.

[AtLiberty]

5. Has she always gone by the name Conny?

Nickname?

[SaveAmerica]

6. Maybe Constance is her real name

Will work on snail mail letter of support to Shelley tonight.

[Amaryllis]

19. Please see this thread: Shelley needs supportive letters and emails

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss//duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=321171&mesg_id=321171

[Helga Scow Stern]

8. Audit of HAVA funds by state finance office

There was a witholding of funds to audit Shelley's use of HAVA funds in August.

http://www.etopiamedia.net/empnn/pdfs/dof1.pdf

[Helga Scow Stern]

10. Center for Govennment Studies

They are a supposedly nonpartisan outfit in LA who have been quoted a lot in "Shelleygate".

Check out their website. They are definitely involved in voting issues:

In an effort highlighted in Steven Levy’s Newsweek article, “A Step Forward in the Voting Wars,” CGS and USC/Columbia Digital Government Research Center have announced the creation of a new institute, the Voting Systems Institute (VSI), to support a growing grassroots effort to develop objective test standards for tamperproof, verifiable, and technologically sound voting systems. Against a background of continuing controversy about the reliability, security, and accuracy of voting technology, VSI will work closely with the newly formed Voting Systems Performance Rating (VSPR) effort, which has brought together state and county election officials, computer and security experts, and voting equipment manufacturers to create assessment methods for voting systems.

http://www.cgs.org/

Sounds good, but is it?

[Senator]

14. cgs.org seems to be...

...an organ of the League of Women Voters. They share an address/fax in LA.

Since they turned against paperless voting this summer, it may be just fine.

But since the turn came as a result of grassroots revolt, who knows.

We should get Andy's view on the League.
-----

www.thedeanpeople.org

[Helga Scow Stern]

33. They must be watched. They are quite vocal in the press about the

Shelley thing. They have a site about un-redistricting. The un-redistricting thing may be good, but I suspect a Trojan horse.

[Helga Scow Stern]

11. Here is what she said about Diebold

As Los Angeles’ registrar-recor-der, Conny McCormack is responsible for running elections in the most populous county in the United States, with more than four million registered voters and almost 5,000 precincts covering 88 cities, 100 school districts, and every conceivable ethnicity and language. This has made her an important national figure in the growing controversy over electronic voting systems. McCormack has often championed politically unpopular positions – standing up for L.A.’s old punchcard system, which suffered from few or none of the misfortunes encountered in Florida in 2000, and then, when punchcards were phased out by order of the Secretary of State, becoming increasingly supportive of electronic touchscreens, or DREs (short for “direct recording entry” machines). Some of the country’s leading voting systems experts praised her for her stance on punchcards, but strongly disagree with her about the safety and reliability of touchscreens.

For now, Los Angeles uses an InkaVote optical scan system. Diebold touchscreens are used only in early voting. Until California’s Secretary of State intervened earlier this month and decertified all touchscreen machines in the wake of serious failures encountered during the March primary election, she was planning to spend more than $100 million on a countywide Diebold touchscreen network. (CityBeat erroneously reported on April 29 that the $100 million had already been spent.) McCormack spoke to CityBeat in response to our report that she had asked Diebold to make software changes in L.A. County for last October’s recall election without getting the changes certified. She offered no denial of the charge that she had circumvented the legal requirement for certification; when pressed on the issue, she ended the conversation.

–Andrew Gumbel

Interesting interview:
http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=942&IssueNum=51

[Helga Scow Stern]

12. There is a lot of interesting info at this "news" site, which seems to

have had quite a hand in Shelley's downfall. They got the EAC involved, and have lots of interesting-looking interviews, which I can't hear.

Hell, from the looks of this, Will Pitt or the Break for News guy ought to be able to interview EAC members, find a major newspaper doubting Blackwell, then ask EAC to investigate.

Simple...:shrug:

Edited to add the link. Also, go to the front page and do a find for Shelley and gets lots of good stuff. I wonder whose payroll they are on???

http://www.etopiamedia.net/empnn/pages/cpt-emnn/cpt-emnn115-5551212.html

[catzies]

13. Wow. Good stuff.

:thumbsup:

[Helga Scow Stern]

15. She sure doesn't like paper receipts...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A5511-2004May5¬Found=true

Paper Receipts Opposed for Voting Machines

By Dan Keating
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 6, 2004; Page A08

Retrofitting electronic voting machines with paper receipts in time for this year's presidential election would cause chaos far worse than the security concerns it is intended to address, election officials told the federal Election Assistance Commission yesterday.

The receipts have been sought as a backstop against computer errors, crashes or tampering. The seven-hour hearing -- the first of the commission, formed in the wake of the controversy over the presidential recount in 2000 -- brought together computer experts, election officials and advocacy groups to begin work on a national policy on electronic voting security.

Waving a 37-inch receipt that would be needed for each voter on a complicated ballot, Los Angeles election chief Conny B. McCormack said making voters pore over the cryptic printout with small type would guarantee confusion. "Touch screens have a proven track record of doing the best job," she said. "Voters are confident in these systems. There's only a tiny, vocal minority making false claims to the contrary."

California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, however, disputed McCormack's claim, saying he followed the unanimous recommendation of his policy panel when he decertified touch-screen equipment last week. "I would not base my decision on the false claims of a tiny minority," he said.
--snip

[WeHoldTheseTruths]

16. Just my thoughts . . .

"Another example is the lawsuit alleging fraudlent computer code in the 1984 Dallas mayoral race. The machine which had counted the votes had used self-modifying code. This made it impossible for the court to establish exactly what the machine had been doing; the challenger's case was dismissed for lack of evidence. Connie McCormack, who was the Dallas Registrar of Voters at the time, said there was no problem. Now, 19 years later, she wants to buy $100 Million worth of Diebold machines for Los Angeles county, and she still says there is no problem."

- end of 8 paragraph post near bottom of posts http://bodyandsoul.typepad.com/blog/2003/09/bev_harris_for_.html

===============

For someone in her position and with her experience, including international consulting, seems to me one can only conclude she just does not care about elections being honest and verifiable -- how could she not be informed about the huge problems with electronic voting and with Diebold? How could anyone concerned with fair elections support her being in her position? I dunno what drives her, but it seems obvious that fair elections, with voter intent being securely recorded, are not near the top of her priorities.

Her bio has already been read by most readers here, including:

- - - - - -
12/95 - Present: REGISTRAR-RECORDER/COUNTY CLERK (RR/CC), Los Angeles Co. CA - Head of Present Department with three major functions.

As Registrar of Voters, responsible for conducting elections for the largest electoral jurisdiction in the U.S. with over 4 million registered voters and 5,000 voting precincts. Conducts federal, state and county elections and, via contract, conducts or supports local elections for 88 cities, 100 school districts and 149 special districts.

As Recorder/County Clerk, responsible for recording up to 3 million property documents each year; maintaining birth, death and marriage records and issuing up to 700,000 copies of same upon request; issuing 60,000 marriage licenses; and filing 100,000 business names and other statutory oaths and filings annually. Only the Social Security Administration and the Pentagon maintain more records than the 200 million that are on file at the RR/CC.

Manages $99 million annual budget; full time staff of 900 with up to 500 temporary employees at peak periods.

===============

Here's something more from a blog, Idlethreats, May 01, 2004: http://www.idlethreats.org/archives/2004_05.html

"California takes it's elections seriously. Diabold considers doing same. California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley has withdrawn his approval of electronic voting machines unless they meet 23 new security standards, and has banned them all together in 4 counties. After a disastrous first run in the primaries this March, and perhaps after doing a little outside reading on the subject, Shelly took state registrars by surprise.

"The best quote of the article comes from LA County Registrar Connie McCormack who says: 'I think it's a tremendous blow to voter confidence. The voters love the equipment. It's been proven to be the most accurate. Now, what are they going to think around the country ... when they read the secretary of state in the largest state said there's a problem with the equipment?'

"Ummm... why would the Regestrar for LA County care what the rest of the country thinks of faulty electronic voting equipment? Unless, of course, she has a vested interest in one of the companies that manufactures the machines.... Posted by russell "

=================

Newspapers should be examining McCormack, not Shelley.

Wonder how much property she owns. Wonder how many "friends" she has in the real estate business. But to be honest, looking at where she went to school and her career, I can not imagine her not having been approached by, and her not having developed at least working relationships with, powerful intelligence agencies and the like. Which would make her well-protected and quite possibly "clean" in terms of small-town type real estate type scams and such.

Really nothing but a guess here, but guess is she is not part of the "Bush machine" and not as "in your face" as many of them (Blackwell). She could be just being run by agents of bigger things, and functioning conscious mainly of her work (and family) bubble. *Finding out who her husband is and what he does* might lend some insight. How cosmopotitan and connected is he?

My guess is it's hard to find any professional dirt on her. Best flank to attack seems that she demonstrably just does not concern herself with fair elections as her position demands she should. People aware of what is at risk would never put up with her tolerance of insecure voting systems.

And with all the data management she oversees, how could she possibly be so unaware of, and pollyanna-ish about such issues as hacking and data security? Are the LA County records she oversees easy to hack? I bet not. So how come she is willing to let Diebold and LA elections be so vunerable?

I bet she's not just some bureaucrat struggling with budget and deadlines and that's just the role she plays. 4 million registered voters . . .

[Helga Scow Stern]

17. Thank you for your insights and research.

I just found something else about this mayoral race, which was in 1985. There is no way Conny is innocent of knowing about potential charges of fraud using DRE's and unverifiable results:

Certain technical problems raised by Ms. Elkins seem to have been given a credible explanation, on the basis of information made publicly available in late 1986. However, as Warner Croft stated in his testimony to the Texas House of Representatives Committee on Elections:

"There is an audit trail but there are holes in it. The audit trail should consist of everything from the ballots themselves to the console log being printed by the computer on election night. The present laws don't identify what the minimum requirements are, so that, with the absence of a minimum definition, it just does not exist. You go after these things, and the laws don't require that they be kept on file now, so they have been destroyed months ago. So you really couldn't tell if there was fact to these allegations are not. That has been one of our problems. Records aren't available; there are no auditable results." <22>

Ms. Elkins' charges that the results were "preprogrammed" independently of the actual votes cast were not put to rest in 1986. In March, 1987, the Texas Attor­ney-General's office asked the District Attorney of Dallas County to assist in reviewing the election complaints. The review concerned "the reliability of Dallas County's computerized election system and whether the equipment is vulnerable to fraud through subtle changes in computer programs." <57>

On October 14, 1987, the office of the District Attorney of Dallas County replied to the Texas Attorney General's Office with a letter <58> including the following:

"We have carefully considered each of the thirteen (13) "discrepancies" discussed in the report , and ... each of the "discrepancies" has been explained to our satisfaction; and although we verified that a few coding errors were in fact made, we have concluded that they were the result of unintentional "human error." We find no evidence whatsoever to indicate any deliberate fraud in the 1985 election, nor do we find any credible evidence to indicate an attempt to manipulate the election or its outcome by anyone, be it candidate, election official, or vendor."

Some knowledgeable persons have found this statement puzzling, in view of Warner Croft's testimony that necessary documents constituting the audit trail had been previously destroyed.
--snip
from Demopedia's 1988 DRE Paper
http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/1988_DRE_paper


Also her public disclosure records may be obtainable under sunshine acts.

[Helga Scow Stern]

18. She was acquainted with new EAC members,

Paul DeGregorio observed the recall as a new Bush appointee, and new Chairman Hillman was with McCormack during the 11/04 election in LA.

Hillman:
(See pages 29 and 30 for photos)
http://regrec.co.la.ca.us/voter/pdfs/11-2-2004PhotoMemoir.pdf

DeGregorio:
http://www.kcet.org/lifeandtimes/archives/200310/20031008.php


Interesting that they focused on LA instead of, say.....Ohio.

They were the ones in the news. Except by this time, Shelleygate had begun and they were after his hide. Nevermind that the California election was reputedly one of the smoothest.

Edited to add:

Previous EAC Chairman based his reasons for investigating Shelley on "important papers' newsreports". What about all the important papers' newsreports about Ohio, before, during, and after the election?

[Amaryllis]

20. Here is more information on the Shelley witch hunt:

From: http://www.wanttoknow.info/votingproblems

California's Secretary of State Kevin Shelley called for a criminal investigation of Diebold, saying the company had lied to state officials. "There was a wholesale breakdown in the election last March. Untold thousands of individuals were turned away and denied their right to vote because the voting equipment couldn't start." So many of the machines malfunctioned or ran unapproved software that Shelley took the extraordinary step of decertifying them.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main63... - CBS website

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190 - MSNBC website

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/2004-05-... - USA Today website

[Amaryllis]

21. But what can we DO?

[Peace Patriot]

24. GO TO LETTER OF THE WEEK #4: Shelley, Diebold & Election Fraud.

Lots of stuff to do there:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss//duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x321070

And Amaryllis has an action site as well:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=321171

[Senator]

22. Why do all criminal roads, somehow, lead back to Nixon?!?

INTERVIEW Conny B. McCormack

Title: Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk

Organization: County of Los Angeles

Born: Honesdale, Pa., February 1949

Education: B.A., political science, Virginia Polytechnic University; M.A., political science, Emory University

Career Turning Point: Successfully applying for elections administrator position in Dallas

Most Admired People: Joan of Arc; former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; Carl Ware, former Atlanta city councilman; her father

Hobbies: Traveling, skiing, gardening

Personal: Husband, Austin, real estate investor; no children. (They live in the Whittier home where Richard and Pat Nixon held their wedding reception.)

COPYRIGHT 2004 CBJ, L.P.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

----

Coincidence? Demonic Possession?

[Peace Patriot]

23. Senator, you had me...laughing out loud! n/t

[Helga Scow Stern]

25. She would be the perfect choice to steal the next California

election. She doesn't like verifiable voting even though she is well aware of the problems that come up, as when she deflected criticism in the 80's when she was in charge of Dallas elections.

She is poised, groomed, supported by the EAC.

[shance]

26. What is the EAC? Elections Assistance Commission?

Can someone give some history?

[Helga Scow Stern]

27. Elections Assistance Commission

They were created after 2000 to monitor HAVA implementation and use of funds.

[Helga Scow Stern]

40. The National Assn. of Secretaries of State voted to ask EAC to disband...

just this weekend:



"Our system, certainly, is not perfect," said Kansas Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh, a Republican. "But, overall, last November's election was successful. The reforms are working."

The officials took issue with legislation that would standardize elections. Over the weekend, the National Association of Secretaries of State passed a resolution over the weekend asking Congress to dissolve the new election commission after it finishes its work.

"I was shocked, surprised, just because I didn't see it coming and don't agree with it," Ney said. "I understand your motivation. It's a horrific balance."

Already, the commission has distributed $2.2 billion of $3 billion set aside for states. The money helped some states install new electronic or optical scan machines before the Nov. 2 election.

The hearing came as congressional investigators, responding to complaints from around the country, look into the malfunctions of voting machines and handling of provisional ballots during last year's

Lawsuits over provisional voting were filed in at least five states, most notably Ohio, Michigan and Missouri."

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=1386

Maybe they don't want to be investigated like Kevin Shelley?

There is a big push not to be regulated, and they want to be able to have diversity in counties choosing their own equipment. What is the big deal with this? Is it just politics as usual, where you get to be lobbied more, etc, if there is competition?

[Helga Scow Stern]

28. Listen to this interview with McCormack and Romero

It only played for me in the cached version, so the url is long:

http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:U_-iWPLHnd0J:www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/index.shtml+romero+%2B%22conny+mccormack%22&hl=en&client=firefox-a

I can't listen to the rest of it now, but in what I heard, Conny is saying how they won't be able to meet the requirements Shelley put in place.

[suffragette]

29. found an email from her in 2002 to Voting Modernization Board

In it, she criticizes concerns about DRE's which were expressed in an article in the LA Times.
The pdf has the email and an image of the artcle to which she refers.
The site:
http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/vma/documents.html
The pdf
http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/vma/pdf/vmb/documents/e-mail_mccormack_070102.pdf

[Helga Scow Stern]

43. Thanks. I've been wondering about that committee they criticize so much.

I'll check it out tomorrow.

[rumpel]

30. I did not know Gray Davis joined by others sued Shelley & McCormack

regarding the recall

http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/elections/davisvshlly80403pet.pdf

[Helga Scow Stern]

41. Oh yeah. I remember now.

We had all hoped the recall wouldn't take place because of this suit....

[rumpel]

31. here's one from Calvoter blog

http://www.calvoter.org/news/blog/2004_05_01_blogarchive.html

Saturday, May 29, 2004


Conny McCormack Q&A 

By Andrew Gumbel, L.A. CityBeat, May 27, 2004

Excerpts:

As Los Angeles’ registrar-recorder, Conny McCormack is responsible for running elections in the most populous county in the United States, with more than four million registered voters and almost 5,000 precincts covering 88 cities, 100 school districts, and every conceivable ethnicity and language. This has made her an important national figure in the growing controversy over electronic voting systems.

------

McCormack spoke to CityBeat in response to our report that she had asked Diebold to make software changes in L.A. County for last October’s recall election without getting the changes certified. She offered no denial of the charge that she had circumvented the legal requirement for certification; when pressed on the issue, she ended the conversation.

–Andrew Gumbel

CityBeat: How do you respond to the charge by Kim Alexander of the California Voter Foundation that you put 40,000 votes at risk by asking Diebold to alter the software on the eve of the recall election?

Conny McCormack: That woman has absolutely no credentials in elections. It’s almost laughable. She says I put 40,000 votes at risk. I would never do that. I wouldn’t have a job if I did that.

Isn’t proper certification of election software an issue?

We have been using and patching software in L.A. County for over 30 years. Whenever changes are made, an incredible amount of testing is done – literally thousands of checks. Now, there have been infractions by all vendors, including in L.A. County. We have not been dotting every “i” and crossing every “t” to certify all the software. But it would be the biggest irony, to me, to have someone say that because we hadn’t done it by such-and-such a date we couldn’t do it. We saw a similar situation in Maryland when they had their primary on March 2. They wanted to put in some security enhancements which hadn’t gone through all of the testing labs, so they decided they were going to waive , because it was more important to have the security enhancements than to have finalization of the process.

[Helga Scow Stern]

32. I read that...the way she dismisses Kim Alexander...

is arrogant and rude and makes me think she has little respect for fair elections. Kim Alexander seems a dedicated volunteer for the truth.

[Helga Scow Stern]

42. I wrote to Kim Alexander and showed her the fax I was sending to

the Dems, and asked if she wanted to "get with us," so to speak. I haven't heard back from her yet.

This is the first time I have heard of marginalizing "voting rights activists" as osme kind of whack jobs or frothing liberal fanatics.

It might be kind of frightening.

[rumpel]

34. This is on a 1985, Dallas TX mayor election problem & other sites

4.3 Dallas, Texas: April, 1985


In the election for Mayor of Dallas, held April 6, 1985, the incumbent Starke Taylor avoided a runoff by obtaining slightly more than the required 50% of the vote. There were three opponents to Taylor: Morehead, Goldblatt, and Daniel. Max Goldblatt, the leading opponent, requested a recount. A machine recount (including absentee ballots that were mixed in) was undertaken on April 11, 1985, by order of the District Court. The original results and the recount results are summarized below: <49>

snip

Ms. Conny McCormack, Dallas County Elections Administrator, admitted that the documentation for the April 6, 1985 election could appear contradictory. Her explanation was that the difficulty concerned the treatment of "split precincts," that is, those precincts bisected by the Dallas city boundary. There were 11 such split precincts. The value of 78,398 for ballots cast was produced by assuming zero ballots cast from these split precincts. The value of 80,208 for ballots cast was produced by adding the total ballots from the split precincts, including ballots cast outside of the city. The final value of 79,783 for ballots cast included only those ballots cast within the city of Dallas. Ms. McCormack contended that the recount generally confirmed the correctness of the originally reported outcome. <54>


Ms. McCormack's explanation of the problem of reporting split precincts was supported by the vendor of the vote-tallying system. In a memorandum on the subject, a vendor representative stated that there was a difference between the type of reports requested by Dallas County Elections Department for the PBCs (precinct ballot counters) and for the central computer. The central computer was used to accumulate totals reported by the PBCs. The coding for the central computer included provision for split precinct specification of ballots cast, but the coding for the PBCs did not allow for this. According to the vendor, "this extra statistical option was not requested by Dallas for that election." <55>

http://www.ecotalk.org/VotingMachines-SaltmanReport.htm

The CA repub site trashing Shelley
http://www.cagop.org/newsroom/details.cfm?pr_id=NI51458629&newsgroup=notes

and

U. S. SENATE GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
HEARING ON ELECTORAL REFORM
MAY 9, 2001
TESTIMONY OF CONNY B. McCORMACK
 REGISTRAR-RECORDER/COUNTY CLERK OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/050901_mccormack.htm

and

INTERVIEW

Conny B. McCormack
Title: Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk
Organization: County of Los Angeles
Born: Honesdale, Pa., February 1949
Education: B.A., political science, Virginia Polytechnic University; M.A., political science, Emory University
Career Turning Point: Successfully applying for elections administrator position in Dallas
Most Admired People: Joan of Arc; former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; Carl Ware, former Atlanta city councilman; her father
Hobbies: Traveling, skiing, gardening
Personal: Husband, Austin, real estate investor; no children. (They live in the Whittier home where Richard and Pat Nixon held their wedding reception.)

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m5072/is_23_26/ai_n6076564

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/viewtopic.php?topic=43569&forum=4

[Amaryllis]

35. AHHHHH ! I Can't stand it! They are all so corrupt! Scream loudly! bang

head against the wall!!!! I want our country back from the evildoers!

[Alizaryn]

36. I believe her husband's name is Austin, check out his "opinion"

on this blog.

http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/001526.shtml

[Helga Scow Stern]

37. Good find.

There sure is strong sentiment and anger against voter verified paper ballots. And a strong tendency to politicize it by the Rethugs. These comment by her husband makes me think she is of the BushCon persuasion, if I had any doubts before.

Posted by: Austin McCormack on March 25, 2004 09:26 PM

Voter Verified paper reciepts sound great in concept as a ballot security measure. They are not. They will not make voting more secure.

IN FACT they will be more easily used as an instrument of voter fraud.
It is far easier to duplicate a roll of paper with printing on it that it has ever been to duplicate a printed ballot. And MUCH easier than to than 1)gaining access to software, 2) writing and inserting code 3) doing so without being noticed. The issue of ballot security is a good one...Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (receipts) is an inadequate patchwork solution.

Posted by: Austin McCormack on March 25, 2004 09:53 PM

There are some pretty wierd folks who have coalesced around Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail as a complete solution to electronic voting.
1) probably the least crazy are the paranoid anti Bush people.
2)Anti Technology people
3)Conspiricy freaks ("the Chinese will steal our elections" I actually heard this!)
4)Self promoters... Say anything that gets you press coverage/votes/attention... or grant money.
5)and lastly, those earnest concerned citizens who believe at first blush that voter Verified paper audit trails is a 100% solution. Itis much more complicated than that.


What makes me so suspicious is, if it isn't a complete solution, then why aren't they suggesting how to make it better? I mean you would think they would if they cared.

[Alizaryn]

38. What got me was how PRO paper ballots the converstion

was going and he butted right in.

[Helga Scow Stern]

39. Yeah, like some of those around here.

:freak:

kinda makes you wonder.