Paper Receipts Opposed for Voting Machines [verification bad says GOP]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5511-2004May5.html
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."

<snip>

This "tiny minority" won't take her accusation of lying...well, lying down. Connie, you are the weakest link. G'bye.

Her resume:

http://regrec.co.la.ca.us/connybio.htm


Conny B. McCormack,
Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk

Department Headquarters
12400 Imperial Highway
Norwalk, California 90650

(800) 815-2666

Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk

Email her office:

voterInfo@rrcc.co.la.ca.us

C'mon people. Let's show her this tiny minority is neither tiny nor a minority and we're CERTAINLY not making false claims.

http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

This person is a know nothing politico that I suspect has a vested interest in these machines. She uses freeperesq logic to argue her case, an example being that confidence in the systems is inversely proportional to the "tiny vocal minority making false claims".

She's very self-righteous and has already decided her position and is willfully ignorant about it too. I'd be embarrassed to exhibit such gross, pathetic stupidity in public if I were her.

http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

Sorry for yelling, but Diebold represents pure evil to me. I hate them.

Not enough time to retrofit printers? We've been screaming about this for three fucking years Diebold.

Why is it that only hard core GWB republicans make voting machines? And when they made them, why did they think a paper record was "unimportant???

And nowhere in her "analysis" did she mention that touch screen systems are easy to crack, wide open for abuse or any of the other known problems. And her main argument in favor of paperless voting is the speed of results, not accuracy - in fact she seems totally unconcerned about accuracy. Another of her reasons for recommending touch screen voting in CA is their popularity in TEXAS, where she spent 7 years fixing elections for the GOP before she came to CA.

From her BIO:

7/81 - 5/87
ELECTIONS ADMINISTRATOR, Dallas County, TX – Responsible for voter registration and election management for 750,000 registered voters.

Check out her swooning recommendation at:

http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/050901_MCCORMACK-a.pdf

HTML version: Google Cache

Quote:

RECOMMENDATIONS

Phase-in Touch Screen Voting: For the near future, it is recommended that the touch screen voting pilot project be expanded in conjunction with the early voting period for the 2001 and 2002 elections. As was pointed out in my November 6, 2000 memo to your Board, Dallas, Texas and Las Vegas, Nevada are two examples of electoral jurisdictions that introduced early voting on touch screens several years ago. Their experiences reveal that the popularity of this approach has grown so dramatically that between 20-40% of their voters, respectively, now cast ballots at early voting sites located not only in government offices but also in shopping centers.

It is anticipated that an ever-increasing number of the County’s voters would take advantage of early voting on touch screens should that option be extended in future elections. In addition to enhancing voters’ options of how and when to vote, it would reduce the number of voters at polling places on election day and stabilize, or perhaps lower, the high number of absentee ballots cast by mail. It would also result in speeding up ballot counting election night as touch screen votes cast during the early voting period are reported shortly after 8 p.m. on election night.


http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

and I agree about the lack of her addressing system "manipulation". I can't believe someone could be so supportive of a system that has proved to be so unreliable.

Vocal minority my ass!

DU - LET'S SEND A LOT MORE!

You know she's a RW partisan because she is so willfully ignorant and biased against accuracy. I can't imagine anyone who wants fair elections claiming that a voter verififiable paper ballot is not a good thing to have.

from their web site

http://www.fec.gov/pages/brochures/complain.htm#anchor460355

http://www.csac.counties.org/legislation/elections/vvpat_caceo.pdf

December 26, 2003
The Honorable Kevin Shelley
Secretary of State
1500 – 11th
Street, Suite 600
Sacramento, CA 95814

Dear Secretary Shelley:

Members of the California Association of Clerks and Election
Officials (CACEO) want to acknowledge the good working
relationship we have enjoyed over the years with the
professional staff of the Secretary of State’s Office.

-snip-

However, we are distressed by the lack of appropriate
communication between CACEO and yourself on important
issues facing California’s election officials. This includes, but
is not limited to, the development of implementation
guidelines for administering the provisions of the federal
Help America Vote Act (HAVA), HAVA funding allocation
decisions and your recent unilateral decision to mandate
voter verifiable paper audit trail (vvpat) printers on electronic
voting machines.

Note she uses the right wing lingo here - "voter verifiable paper audit trail" instead of "paper ballots"

The CACEO Officers have requested, first verbally and then
in writing, the opportunity to discuss with you personally the
topic of requiring vvpat on electronic-voting equipment
(reference President Ann Reed’s letter to you dated October
10, 2003). You have refused to do so. The leadership of
CACEO was concerned to find out, with one day’s notice,
that you had scheduled a press release on Friday,
November 21st, on vvpat even though proponents of vvpat
knew of your pending decision two weeks prior to your
announcement.

Page 2
The Honorable Kevin Shelley
December 26, 2003
Page 2 of 3

Your recent cancellations of your prescheduled regular monthly
conference calls with us, your failure to deal directly with us and your refusal to meet with us on major issues cannot do anything but result in uninformed actions on your part and subsequent future election administration problems.

Your Ad Hoc Touch Screen Task Force Report (July 1, 2003) contains
several viable options for addressing the goal of auditing Direct Recording Electronic Equipment (DRE’s). Given the opportunity, the leadership of CACEO would have pointed out that your mandates on vvpat found in paragraphs three and four of your November 21, 2003 letter to California Elections Officials ignores several major findings of your Task Force Report (pages five through seven). Simply stated, you have mandated, in a very short period of time, the implementation of a vvpat solution that is not currently certified in California. The certification process, which is under your control, may not be completed in time to meet your own mandated deadline.

We ask that you provide us with the opportunity to discuss major issue
with you in the future before you finalize your position. For the present, we request that you reconsider your vvpat decision. Again, we formally request a meeting with you to fully discuss the ramifications of your decision to require vvpat in California.

Sincerely,

(signed on page 3)
Executive Board Members
CACEO
:ceb
Page 3
The Honorable Kevin Shelley
December 26, 2003
Page 3 of 3
CACEO Executive Board Members:
s/Ann Reed
s/Conny B. McCormack
__________________________ ___________________________
Ann Reed
Conny B. McCormack
President
Vice
President
s/Stephen Weir
s/Kathleen Moran
___________________________ ___________________________
Stephen
Weir
Kathleen
Moran
Treasurer
Secretary

afraid that the People's votes would actually be counted. I hope the citizens can see right through this farce.

What in the hell got her a place in the hearing? Was the testimony stacked with people like her, and only one or two people who are working for free elections?

THIS SUCKS!!!

We need to e-mail the members of that Elections Committee and let them know we AREN'T "small" and we aren't a "minority". Everyone that does any research about this AT ALL comes on board.... the problems are more than evident!!

Does anybody have e-mail addresses for the committee??

On edit: The future of our country depends on getting this straightened out BEFORE November! The BBV fans are trying to see to it that they get to steal at least one more election.... and we all know that this will be the last one they ever need to steal. We'll be so far down the hole of fascist state we'll never recover, if we don't get a fair vote in 2004. I'm worried, especially by the likes of this hearing, that it may already be too late. They are BLATANTLY showing us they intend to keep on stealing elections.

:kick:

this issue is comparable to making a expenditure.

Would you buy a car or house and walk away without a receipt? You buy a pack of gum and you get a receipt. What's so complicated about that. Machines have been producing paper receipts for years and years; mechanical and electronic. ATM's have been around for years...made by who?

Our votes are the most important transactions we make in lifetimes...the choices we make affect generations to come.

Without BBV, all is lost for them. Turn up the heat and watch them squirm.

:eyes:

You can program something to print out "Voted for Kerry" when, in fact, it registered the vote as being for Bush or Nader.

We're not calling for a "receipt" as she puts it - we want a Voter Verified Paper Ballot. The paper ballot is the actual vote, and is secured in a lockbox at the voting place, to be hand-counted in the case of a recount, and also to be used for random audits.