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Somewhere in GEMS there must be a setting to cause the
following happen: race is a vote for one; write-in voting in allowed; voter
votes for both a named candidate and the write-in space; race is not treated as
an overvote, but instead the vote is given to the write-in space. This is
a requirement of North Carolina election law. I was of the opinion (as was
the GEMS documentation dated 6/30/98) that the way to cause this to happen was
to set the Write-In setting (under AccuVote Options) to Override. I was
wrong. Is there a place to set the AccuVote for the behavior required by
the North Carolina election code? If not, there should be
immediately. This has been noticed by one of the North Carolina customers
in preparation for their October municipal elections. November elections
follow immediately. I'm willing to let it ride until after November, but I
would like sales to weigh in on the issue to determine how much damage this may
cause. If this functionality has never been in place, no one seemed to
notice in the three accounts using GEMS in 1998 (Ashe, Avery, Iredell).
Several North Carolina accounts have now upgraded to GEMS or have their service
bureau work done on GEMS (namely Halifax, Harnett, Edgecombe, Franklin, Rowan,
Richmond). Also, we've run into a bit of trouble at the N.C. State Board
of Elections (albeit over an entirely different issue of AccuVote
behavior). Robert P. had to do a bit of tap dancing to keep them off our
backs.
Tyler
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