New Registrar of Voters Learned Hard Way in Dallas

The last two years of Conny McCormack’s reign as elections coordinator for Dallas County have been running smoothly.

By the time McCormack becomes the San Diego County registrar of voters in June she will have handled more than 700 major and minor elections with the use of the computerized punch-card system that she helped establish in Dallas.

The first few years in Dallas for McCormack, 38, however, were anything but smooth. At various times she was accused of unethical behavior, racism and mismanagement of the punch-card system. A joint FBI-Justice Department investigation into an election snafu was launched.

McCormack said she has bitter memories of those charges but that it’s all behind her. “I was totally cleared by everybody,” she said.

The first significant problem occurred in 1982 about a year after she was appointed elections administrator. She was listed as a board member of a women’s organization, the Business and Professional Women’s Assn., which endorsed political candidates.

Critics alleged that she violated the county’s elections code. McCormack said she left the association before being appointed.

“My name was never officially removed,” she said. “The issue arose after taking this job. My name was on there. I had not technically gone to resign. I technically did not participate.”

The second allegation surrounded the 1982 general elections. In that one, 28 precincts ran out of ballot cards early in the afternoon during a massive voter turnout. Election judges called the county’s voters registration office to deliver more ballots and the Sheriff’s Department was used to help transport the ballots to the precincts.

Black community leaders critical of McCormack filed protests against the county claiming that thousands of black voters were turned away because most of the precincts that ran out of ballots were in the minority communities. The FBI and the Justice Department were called to investigate but found no wrongdoing.

“That election of 1982 had the highest, unprecedented turnout,” McCormack said. “The election judges waited down to almost the last ballot and called and said, ‘Would you please send us some more ballots.’ We resupplied them as fast as we could.

“We simply underestimated a potential turnout. I was in a new position, just about a year. It was just a combination of factors. We were confronted with a new system.”

McCormack said she was bothered most when minority leaders began saying the lack of ballots was a racial matter.

“It personally hurt me more than anything that I was being called a racist,” she said. “It was a bad situation. Some of the shortages we had were in the white areas as well. I had come from Atlanta and I was the chief legislative assistant to the City Council. I was the only white in an all black staff (in Atlanta).”

Ted Watkins, president of the Dallas chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, admitted that the black community at first overreacted in its criticism of McCormack, but said that McCormack was simply naive.

“The outcry was that it was her fault,” Watkins said. “But the only thing I’ve got to fault her with is that you’ve got to assume that all the people are going to vote. No one should be God and predict who’s going to vote.”

Watkins now praises McCormack, calling her “the best registrar of voters you can find.”

System Criticized

At several elections the new punch-card system brought in by McCormack was criticized. Most recently, in the close 1985 election for mayor of Dallas, the loser claimed the new system couldn’t be trusted.

A recount turned up a one-vote change among 79,783 ballots cast.

McCormack said, “The whole focus of the investigation has been the punch-card voting system . . . was the punch-card voting susceptible to tampering and manipulation?”

McCormack will succeed Ray Ortiz, who resigned in September amid charges of mishandling contracts and misappropriating public funds and is awaiting trial on 27 felony counts.

Ortiz and two others will be tried for grand theft, making false entries on public records and misappropriation of public money.

McCormack said she met Ortiz when she was a member of the International Assn. of Major Election Administrators. She is currently vice president of the organization and became friends with Ortiz through their work.

“He called to congratulate me (for getting the San Diego job),” McCormack said.

Pay Increase

Of the allegations against Ortiz, she said, “It came as a total shock to me. He hasn’t talked to me (about the charges).”

In her new position McCormack will be paid about $60,000. She makes $48,926 in Dallas.

When McCormack comes to San Diego in June she will be responsible for handling elections in a county that has more than a million voters compared to the 784,000 registered voters in Dallas County.

Before becoming elections administrator in 1981, McCormack was director of the Jury Services Department in Dallas. From 1977 to 1978, McCormack was chief administrative assistant to the president of the Atlanta City Council.

McCormack has an undergraduate degree in political science from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and a masters degree in political science and public affairs from the University of Miami. She has been married for three years.

Today will mark her last Dallas election as voters there choose a mayor.