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RE: Time differences for Vote Centers for Master database & backup - DuPage County
Okay, this
misbehavior has been escalated from merely confusing/annoying to
serious. Because dump/load in different time zones changes the local time,
it is possible for the date to also change if the
local time is close to midnight. Since we print the date on the back
of the ballot artwork, this can make a serious mess. In particular,
emailing databases with the setup->election times set in the wee hours of the
morning westwards to Spectrum will result in misprinted ballots.
No, election times shouldn't be set to wee hours of the morning, but that's
sorta beside the point.
The fix. GEMS
1.17.12 when released will load the same local time no matter in what time zone
the dump/load takes place. Note that this means if you are quick enough
emailing databases westwards, you can make the local time as reported in the
audit logs go backwards. It is this problem the original design was trying
to address. The only completely correct solution
here is for us to store both the time and the time zone in the
audit logs, upload, etc, but that will have to wait for 1.18, since we need
a new field to store said time zone. In the mean time, just make
yourself aware of the behavior. The audit log will still be in the correct
order, it will just look like there was a rift in the space-time
continuum is all.
Unfortunately for
existing databases, GEMS has no way of knowing the time zone of the
existing times already stored. So, audit logs, upload times, election
time, etc, will look like they happened in England after you upgrade. All
events forward will behave correctly though. This is hopefuly "merely
annoying". If you are really concerned about this, you can set your local
time zone to "Greenwich Mean Time" and dump your database under 1.17.11, then
reset the time zone to local time and load under 1.17.12. If enough people
loose sleep over this, I can add a "shift time" option to the database load
dialog, but that that is not really easy to do, and I don't think this will be a
really big problem in practice.
I know this is all
confusing. I'll try to clarify if any of the above is unclear. Sorry
for the inconvenience.
Ken
I
thought that I did that before, but I must of just changed the time and not
the time zone. Yes, the time zone change made the difference.
Thanks.
Educated guess: Backup the database, change the time zone
on your computer, and then load it. I would not be surprised if that
changes the local time reported, but I have never tried.
Ken
Tom Schuhler
from GBS has reported this to me, and also forwarded on to me the master
database & the backup database. I am not sure how it was done,
but no matter how much I try, I cannot duplicate the problem. The
master database was uploaded with all the results from the AccuVote units,
and have recorded times after 20:00 hours. However, Tom says that
they did a backup afterwards, loaded that backup onto their other Gems
computer, and when they went to the recorded times for the Vote Centers,
those times started at 14:00 hours. Does anyone have any
ideas???
Thanks,
Jeff Hintz
Global Election Systems